Chapter Eighty-Two: Final Showdown: Part Three: Esto Omnia Et Omnia Finis
- ENTRY #89 -
No… all of my work was for naught.
'They' knew. 'They' knew what I was planning all along.
They just haven't intervened because 'they' found my ████████████. They just wanted to see me ████████████.
They laughed at me one last time, mocking my idea to use ████████████ to break out of my ████████████. They said that even if I were to harvest a ████████████ worth of it, it would not make a bit of difference. Nothing would ever break ████████████. Or on the other pieces of Trash they use as their ████████████.
Especially not while my mind was muddled by my Cursed Series.
…
That is why my past ████████████ became so disturbed.
I just looked at my Book and confirmed that 'they' were right.
Those two ████████████ I unlocked that gave me offensive capabilities…
…
I just used [Search Engine] to finally verify it.
My only purpose in being born… in serving them… is to ████████████.
Everything… all that I've done up to this point… all that I did in the name of ████████████…
████████████.
████████████.
Because of me, ████████████.
…
I never had a chance.
I
Never
Had
A
Chance…
- ENTRY #90 -
I remembered what happened that day now. After finding the pair of glasses Yomogi gave me.
They didn't punish me after all.
They never even appeared.
I punished myself when I fell into Despair after learning a twisted version of the truth from [Search Engine] and unlocked both of my Cursed Series at the same time.
Yomogi was trying to stop me. To snap me out of it before I went out to destroy everything in my path.
I remember her cries. Her stubbornness to bring me back to the light. She even hugged me when all else failed.
That's why she was hurt so badly when I came out of it.
That is why I have been slowly growing insane as of late.
I hurt her.
I was the one that hurt Yomogi, the first person to ever really care about me.
…
…
Guilt.
That is what the feeling in my chest was. I understand it now.
…
Yomogi…
I…
I wish that I could do better by you… but it is impossible.
I cannot beat 'them'. I will never be able to beat 'them'. I will never be able to give us the happy ending that you and our friends desire.
All I can do… is ████████████so we won't have to suffer any longer.
…
…
May you and Kizuna forgive me for what I do next.
The fate of both armies moved back and forth between two individuals.
Their soldiers battled one another as well as the Wave Monsters. But Corrin's blade moved solely against Xander's, and vice versa.
Xander's blade came down for a heavy strike, which Corrin managed to deflect to the side. He then swung Yato at his brother's shoulder, only for Xander to raise his own sword and bat Corrin's blade away.
Luvar's Commander then forced Corrin back onto the defensive as he powerfully stepped forward, throwing one heavy strike after another at the shorter man.
Corrin sidestepped and blocked the multiple strikes, managing to evade injury. His mouth moved until Yato began to shine in his hands. "Shining Stones: Divine Light!"
A burst of light flared between the two combatants. Xander covered his eyes with one hand, but nearby Wave Monsters screeched as the searing light blinded them. Making it easier for the surrounding soldiers to deal with them.
"Hah!" Corrin moved to slash at Xander's other shoulder this time, but even with his eyes covered, Xander still moved his blade to block. Interlocking their weapons for a brief period.
"You're not going for the kill, brother." Xander spat the words out. "You aren't using any thrusts and you keep targeting my arms and legs. Do you hope that by injuring me enough, you can force me to concede this battle?"
Corrin grimaced and brought his sword back to strike at Xander's other side, but the man blocked it again. Backstepping, with his eyes closed, he blocked Corrin's subsequent strikes until they were near the center of the circle again.
"Bejeweled Flame Lance!" Xander then stabbed forward, having chanted his spell during that time. Corrin dove to the side, avoiding the attack. But the fire spell ripped through several of his men, as well as some of Xander's own.
"No!" Corrin swung down with his heavy swing, but Xander's eyes had opened by then, and he easily deflected the Emperor's attack to the side, knocking Yato out of Corrin's hands and making it spin through the air before it embedded itself into the ground far away from the two.
Corrin's eyes widened in surprise, but Xander was already swinging at his neck. "Hmph. Is your conviction so weak, that you can't even keep a hold on your weapon, brother?"
"Huah!" Corrin crossed his gauntlets, catching Xander's blade against them. The large man looked impressed, and then Corrin's foot landed a solid kick against his gut, launching him back several steps.
Corrin reached out with his gauntlet, which launched itself from his fist using wind magic and grasped Yato in its hand, pulling it out of the ground and back into the Emperor's grip while Xander caught his breath. A hint of a smile rested on the rogue nobleman's face. "You might not be going for the kill. But you have improved since our spars when we were younger."
"H… Hinoka helped me in that regard." Corrin breathed in and out deeply.
"And yet she's failed to pass on that killing intent of hers to you," Xander said next while shaking his head in disappointment. "If only Azura's death had affected you the same way as it did the rest of us."
Xander's blade came at Corrin again, and he caught it against his own.
The exchange lasted a few seconds, with Corrin interlocking his blade against his brother's.
This close, Xander and Corrin were inches apart, allowing the larger man to glare down at him. "As Emperor, you must be willing to do everything you can to secure your rule! So that your country may live in peace!"
"What good is one's rule if it's through fear and terror?! That is only the rule of a tyrant!" Corrin responded heatedly.
He pushed his older brother back and swung one of his gauntleted fists forward.
Magic from the armor activated again, and the gauntleted fist rocketed off his hand, punching Xander in the chest and forcing him to take another step back.
The gauntlet flew back and reattached itself to Corrin's hand as he leaped into the air and used wind magic to swing his feet around, avoiding Xander's blade while landing a solid blow to the large man's face.
But as the young emperor tried to swing for Xander's shoulder with Yato right after, the General grabbed Corrin by his wrist.
Saying nothing, he forced Corrin back onto the ground. "Agh!" Corrin yelled out in pain as Xander's grip tightened, denting his armor underneath his grip.
One of the gems on the emperor's gauntlet flashed brightly, and a surge of flames burst out from the wrist, striking Xander's eyes. The taller man screamed out and instinctively let go to shield his face. But the moment Corrin had managed to get up to his feet, Xander headbutted him, knocking the gem man back down on the ground.
"You can take away my arms. You can take away my legs. You can even take away my eyes. But I will never stop coming, brother." Xander blindly struck down with his blade once again, but Corrin activated his armor's wind magic again to blow him back and stand up again.
He nursed his sore wrist as he did so. It hadn't broken, but it felt sprained.
"I have seen the truth of this world with my own two eyes. Fear and terror are necessary to rule. Even if it's not from your people, the world must fear you enough to not attack even when your nation is at its most vulnerable!" Xander stepped forward, his blade hanging at his side. His eyes were open again, glaring at Corrin. "You do your people a disgrace if you're unable to accomplish such a feat!"
"But peace and cooperation build far more than war and conflict ever will! Gaps between nations and cultures can eventually be bridged over time!" Corrin rebutted.
"Not always." Xander raised his blade. "Sometimes, there is no other alternative.
"You cannot break a thousand years of animosity with just a few days of peace talks. You cannot understand one group's hatred towards another without first understanding what caused the hatred in the first place.
"You cannot settle all disputes with fairness and understanding. And you certainly cannot quell the ambitions within the hearts of individuals whose intent is to crush everyone in their way!
"To seek justice through laws against such individuals all the time is impossible. Justice itself is merely an illusion, a fairy tale for children. To believe that the world is black and white is to miss half the picture. Against such totalitarian rulers, against these people whose only joy is the suffering of those around them, there is only one recourse to make them listen.
"It is to force them to bend the knee and submit personally!" Xander's eyes flashed dangerously.
Corrin didn't respond as Xander's assault resumed in earnest.
For several minutes, their battle continued between one another.
No more words were exchanged during that time. Unless it was the incantation of some spell.
To Corrin's dismay, the soldiers protecting both combatants from Wave Monsters gradually began to bear the marks of Luvar as the soldiers he brought with him began to get overwhelmed. And while he did mark Xander with some scratches or bruises, Corrin took several different injuries of his own in their back and forth.
His sore wrist made it harder to block Xander's more aggressive strikes without feeling any pain. And though he tried his best, he took more hits to his armor and body than what he'd managed to land on his brother.
"Shining Stones: Earth Pillar!"
Corrin's spell encased the large man on all sides with solid walls of Earth. Buying the Emperor a moment's reprieve, but he hardly had the chance to catch his breath when the earthen walls exploded outwards, and Xander forced himself forward again.
"Bejeweled Ruby Blaze!" Xander's spell exploded against Corrin's chest plate, knocking him back and leaving burns on his face.
"Bejeweled Fire Lance!" Xander quickly followed with another spell after chanting, sending the same spell as before at his brother.
Corrin activated his armor again in response, blowing Xander away with Wind Magic. And this time, Xander's spell only hit his men.
Corrin looked back in horror though. Even though they should have been his brother's allies, Xander's attack burned all those men to ash.
Despite his pain, he looked at Xander frantically. "Why is your magic hurting your men?! Are they not in your party?!"
"I may be their commander." Xander stepped forward, raising his blade again. "But that doesn't mean they have the honor of being a part of my party system."
Corrin's eyes widened even more, only to fall.
He raised Yato to block Xander's next strike successfully, but it required both his hands to do it. And Xander, while keeping the pressure with one hand, proceeded to use his other gauntleted hand to punch Corrin in the gut repeatedly.
After the eighth strike in quick succession, Corrin coughed up blood, stumbling back as one of his hands clutched the lower part of his chest. His armor there was dented, and it felt like one of his ribs had broken. Several of the gemstones there were cracked as well.
The amount of energy left in his armor was pretty low too.
He tried to mutter the words for an incantation, but Xander had already leaped at him. His sword was drawn back to swing down on Corrin's neck.
This time, the Emperor's damaged armor activated on its own, forming a blast of wind to launch him back.
Yet this time, it was too late in helping him to dodge the entirety of the attack.
The tip of Xander's blade connected, slashing through Corrin's chest plate and leaving a long gash from Corrin's right shoulder to the left side of his chest.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Corrin screamed in pain as he collapsed back.
Xander flicked his brother's blood from the end of his blade after his attack was over. He strode forward, standing up tall over the Emperor's fallen form.
"Agh! Ah!" Corrin breathed in and out painfully. Yato fell uselessly to the ground beside him as blood leaked through his ruined armor.
Xander continued to stand over Corrin, looking… disappointed. "You could have been so much more, brother. You had so much potential… just like our older sister. Regardless of her status as a Vassal wielder."
Corrin didn't respond. Despite being in so much pain, he tried to find and grab Yato's hilt. It wouldn't do his soldiers any good to see their leader die without trying to put up a fight till the very end.
But then, it didn't look like any more of his soldiers were around. They'd either been pushed back by the waves of Luvar soldiers and Wave Monsters, or otherwise, killed.
And if so, then what was the point in trying to preserve his honor? In the end, he didn't want to kill his brother. And even if he had possessed the desire for it, he just didn't have that same kind of drive Xander held.
He hadn't wanted to deal with the politics of Lapis as its ruler. Maybe, it would have been right to say that at one point, he'd wanted to go and see the outside world just like Therese. Only, he hadn't dared to do that either.
He grew up in the shadows of the others raised as his siblings. Unsure and uncertain if he could ever amount to anything.
Yet despite that, he ended up being carried up to the throne by Kizuna and her allies. Hinoka, trained in the ways of royalty just like he'd been, fell in love with him, and he fell for her in turn.
Then, after they successfully took the throne, Corrin wasted no time in taking charge of the noble houses. He pushed for various reforms and assisted against the Demon Dragon to its conclusion. Even after that, he made changes that made things better in Lapis by allowing those in the lower classes to voice their grievances and he acted to fulfill their demands.
He could not satisfy everyone, but he tried his best to do so. Because Kizuna had helped him and his wife so many times, he embraced the ideals she shared with him with all his heart.
"Are you done already? Is this what your conviction amounts to?" Xander finally asked when Corrin made no more attempts to stand up again for a while.
It wasn't that Corrin didn't want to be Xander's ideal image of a leader, he couldn't.
He wanted to be able to satisfy everybody, no matter what it took. And that was his greatest mistake. Because Xander was right in that regard.
It was impossible to do so. Kindness, understanding, and mercy; these were the qualities of a good ruler. But the best rulers had more than just these. There was a bit of that courage they had to hold in adversity as well as being uncompromising in the face of those who were tyrants.
Weird how he was able to comprehend all this now. Though focusing on his brother's face, it still looked as cold and impassive as ever.
"If this is all you have, then I see my time here has been wasted." Xander began to lift his blade over his head to deliver a downward strike. "As you are, you won't be able to help out our world."
Corrin… sighed to himself.
What a mess he'd gotten everyone into. Perhaps if he'd acted sooner and more decisively…
As Xander was about to swing down, his eyes got caught on something up above. His face twisted into a frown, and his sword lowered to his side. "How odd, Harpoon and Musician countries are choosing to attack now? The demon lord predicted that these opportunists would only leap into action after this battle's conclusion to hog all the glory and plunder for themselves- No wait, that's...!"
A communication ofuda buzzed in Corrin's back pocket, causing his eyes to snap open again. Then a woman's voice rose from it, nearly making the emperor freeze up.
"My dear husband, are you just going to keep on laying in the snow like a dog, or are you going to accept the party invitation that I sent you minutes ago?!"
Corrin opened his HUD and found a notification. Pulling it up, he found that he'd recently received a party request from his wife.
But… how? He'd left her in charge of Lapis's defense. She shouldn't have been anywhere nearby. And-
"For the love of- just accept it already!" Hinoka's voice yelled again.
Corrin accepted the party request right away and suddenly, Hinoka appeared in his party system alongside Ryoma, Cole, L'Arc, and Therese.
And beneath her name… were thousands of different party systems connected to hers.
The pain in his body vanished almost immediately. An area of Gem Healing Magic covered the area in his vicinity.
Xander's eyes widened even more in surprise. "I see… you did choose your spouse well, Corrin." Xander said, stepping back into a defensive pose. "Neither I nor the demon lord had predicted such an outcome."
The Luvar soldiers fighting Wave Monsters looked up as shadows passed out of the clouds of smoke overhead. Their faces twisted first in shock, and then fear.
Where Therese stood in the air, with at least ten Luvar airships surrounding her, ready to do battle, she paused.
Odd, she got the feeling that something big was about to happen. Where was it coming from?...
As she pondered on it, the ships she was about to face all turned tail and fled.
She found that really confusing, but then, she finally realized where that nagging feeling was coming from.
It was coming from the gems of her armor. They were telling her to turn around.
She turned in the air, and it was a good thing she wasn't holding a weapon, as her hands opened in shock.
"No need to worry. Help has arrived!"
"Gah!"
Therese almost wanted to bawl from relief.
Ships of various sizes flew past her, chasing after the ships of Luvar's fleet. Gem commandos jumped off them to join the battle below or to duel with the monsters in the sky.
There were many of them. Almost too numerous to count. It seemed as if the entirety of the Lapis fleet had been brought in. Or rather, that was exactly what happened.
"Hinoka! You came!" Therese yelled happily as the gem woman herself flew by in her favorite warship.
Her appearance was different. She was arrayed in her royal attire but had the addition of silver and gold colored armor covering the tops of her arms and red armored greaves covering her legs. It did not look near as flashy as her husband's adamantium armor, but she wasn't one to fight on the ground anyway. She always preferred fighting from the air, and her lack of armor gave her more mobility.
Plus, it allowed her to strap Kana to her back in a baby holder. The baby girl looked ecstatic to be outside the castle.
"Damn straight I did. Pass your thanks to Label's minister when you see him next! He had enough sense in his bald wrinkly head to contact me directly and request aid after my foolish husband decided that he should split his forces even more!
"Now then, let's see… damn it, what's taking him so long to accept it. I can see him from here!" Hinoka pulled an ofuda off her belt and raised it to her lips. "My dear husband, are you just going to keep on laying in the snow like a dog, or are you going to accept the party invitation that I sent you minutes ago?!"
…
She didn't get a response immediately, which only seemed to infuriate her even more. "For the love of- just accept it already!"
Therese sweatdropped. Heh, it didn't look like her cousin had changed one bit.
Just like that, she appeared on Therese's party menu under Corrin.
Hinoka raised her naginata to the sky. "Come on! Let's show these fools why I'm known as the Warrior Queen!" Hinoka yelled to the forces around her.
The collective battle cry she received in return blotted out the cries of the whole battlefield.
"FOR THE EMPIRE!"
"FOR THE EMPIRE!"
Up above, the entirety of Lapis's military might dove down through the clouds of smog and ash covering the sky and began to converge on the battlefield in the form of hundreds of airships of various sizes.
"Bejeweled Ruby Blaze!"
"Shining Stones: Thunder Rain!"
"Bejeweled Healing Field!"
A wide variety of different spells came from the various Gem People aboard the ships. It was not just the Gem Noblesses, but all of Lapis's military had been brought to bear.
Allied soldiers under Corrin's party system who were suffering from plenty of different injuries and status debuffs all over the battlefield found themselves healed over several seconds. They subsequently received buffs in their stats that allowed them to confidently throw themselves back into combat against their foes.
On the opposing side, the enemy army as well as the Wave Monsters on the ground found themselves the target of an intense magical orbital bombardment.
Fire Magic. Lightning Magic. Water Magic. Earth Magic. Light or Dark Magic. Even debuff magic. It did not matter. The Gem Mages rained hell down on everyone who did not belong to Corrin or Hinoka's party systems. And the Gem Magic did not harm any of their allies in the slightest.
"Ahhhhh!" It did not take long for the area around Corrin and Xander to clear as the latter's forces began to retreat.
"No, press the attack you fools!" Xander bellowed after them.
A few heeded his commands. But only a few. The rest were cut down by either the orbital bombardment or the Noblesse Commandos who flew down to reinforce his Majesty's position or otherwise evacuate their wounded who needed more advanced healing magic, as well as retrieving the bodies of those who'd perished valiantly defending their Emperor.
Xander scowled deeply. A vein popped in his forehead as a brown glow surrounded him, dampening the green glow that'd been buffing him before.
Around him, his army began to be routed. It was like the gates of hell had opened, and Lapis was unleashing a tidal wave of destruction on the ground and in the air.
Hinoka wasn't just helping against Luvar. The Warrior Queen herself screamed as she piloted her favorite ship towards an Interdimensional Wyrm that breathed fire at her.
"Shining Stones: Fiery Ram!" Hinoka chanted.
The monster screeched as the bow of the ship, covered over in flames, rammed right through its fire breath and tore into its chest like a makeshift lance. Her soldiers on deck, armed with naginatas, charged harmlessly through their Queen's flames and stabbed the monster in multiple spots. Killing it instantly.
Corrin stood once again, gripping Yato tightly in his hand as some of his commandos rushed to assist him.
"I will be fine now! Focus on the Wave!" Corrin ordered them without turning his head.
Despite just arriving with Lady Hinoka, they didn't question him and rushed to fulfill their Emperor's command.
Xander swatted away several different spells that came at him from above, but several different AoE spells hit the ground around him. When the smoke cleared, he didn't look badly hurt, but his armor was visibly damaged and covered in scorch marks. He was gripping his blade as tight as ever.
Corrin grimaced as he ripped the rest of his ruined chest plate armor off his body, revealing his normal royal outfit with a slash mark through it underneath. The gems still alive on the armor tiredly pleaded that they could still fight, but he thought that he'd lost enough of his gem friends for one day.
He not only took the chest plate off but his damaged gauntlets and greaves too, leaving him in his regular royal attire.
"Brother!" Corrin pronounced. "I can't refute everything you have told me. I recognize where my ideals have fallen short.
"But I remember it was you who taught me that we should never allow the corrupted ideals of others to take precedence over our own! In such a scenario, we all lose!
"I promise to end this conflict between us! And I will show you by the time we're done that I have the ambition to see us through to a peaceful future!"
Xander's scowl only deepened. "Fine, let us see if you can get me to stop, little prince."
He rushed forward and attacked again.
Corrin leaped forward and met Xander's attack with his own.
L'Arc was still alive and kicking, somehow.
"First Form: Wind Blade!"
A tornado of wind cut up the Wave Monsters in front of the King and his HUD was repeatedly racked with an array of experience notifications. Normally, such visual obstructions would be relatively easy to adapt to. However, L'Arc's left eye was currently caked over with blood from a wound to the forehead that one of the Luvar officers managed to inflict on him. This impaired his vision even further.
The Scythe Hero had received several other different injuries too. He had some nasty gashes on his arms and shoulders from the monsters. His broken leg also didn't feel quite mended from the single Healing Crystal he'd used on himself after his airship had crashlanded.
L'Arc had prioritized healing his allies first since no one among the survivors knew any healing magic. But that was starting to bite him in the butt now.
No, wait, that was one of the Interdimensional Drakes that'd gotten behind him. That wasn't a good sign.
"Full Moon Army!" L'Arc's enlarged scythe came down onto the creature and cut it clearly in two before it could tear the king to shreds.
The weight of his weapon made L'Arc stumble after it though. Crap, he was starting to feel the blood loss now.
"Sire!" One of Sickle's remaining officers pulled the King back, allowing one of the remaining Noblesse commandos from Lapis to take his place. Another of his soldiers moved to cover where one of their comrades had fallen. That had been what allowed the monster L'Arc had just killed to attack them from behind.
"What's our status? Any progress on restoring communications with the rest of the fleet?" L'Arc asked as he sat down on a crate.
"No, everything is still dark, Your Majesty. However, we caught a few glimpses of some of our allied ships trying to get close and make a landing. They were chased off by Luvar ships before they could, but this means that whoever is currently in command of our forces must already be aware of our situation and is trying to help." The officer responded confidently. He was bandaging up the wounds on L'Arc's arms as best he could given the circumstances.
"That's good news." L'Arc nodded. "We'll just need to hold on for a little more time the-"
"Ahhhhh!" A noblesse commando screamed as a Wyrm flew overhead, grabbing the man by his pauldrons.
The remaining commandos couldn't fly up to save their comrade. The energy in their armor was too low to use its flight capabilities anymore.
L'Arc struggled to stand up again. "Your Majesty, at least let me finish bandaging you up." His officer said.
"You can bandage me up after I cut us a way back to Corrin and Therese." L'Arc gripped his Scythe tightly as he grimaced.
Yep, he was sure his leg was broken. And since some of the adrenaline had worn off, he realized he had a broken rib too, and possibly a fracture in his left arm. Man, he was beaten and battered. No wonder his health bar was so low on his HUD.
Oh well, he couldn't just stand by as his allies risked their lives to keep him safe.
He was their Hero, as well as their King, so he was going to have to get them out of this mess, one way or-
BOOM!
The Wave Monsters in front of them disappeared under a bright, fiery explosion.
…
L'Arc's eyes slowly blinked. He rubbed at his left eye to make sure it was clear of blood and looked again.
Nope, all the shadowy creatures they'd been facing just a moment ago were now nothing but scorch marks on the ground.
"Sir!"
A pair of gem commandos landed on the ground in front of L'Arc right after. "Waxer!"
"Boil!"
"Reporting for duty!" The duo said simultaneously. Their armor, which had yellow accents on their pauldrons and helmets, looked fully charged and ready to go.
"... heh." L'Arc nearly collapsed in relief and exhaustion. "Took you long enough. Was the battle going that badly on your side-"
"L'Arc!"
Before the Scythe Hero could finish speaking, however, a third armored noblesse landed in front of him and immediately tackled him into a hug.
"T-Therese?" The young king recognized the voice.
"Oh thank the earth, you're alright!" The gem woman replied shakily while clinging to him like a lifeline. "I'm so sorry I took so long! I was trying to get closer over and over, but there were just too many of these damn stealth ships everywhere and I-" She kept talking quickly while choking and gasping for air.
"Thank goodness." L'Arc wheezed out and hugged her back before immediately going limp in her arms. A wave of pain went over his body.
Seeing his rough condition as well as the conditions of everyone L'Arc had been fighting alongside, Therese quickly composed herself. "Waxer, right? I'm putting you in charge of getting these soldiers evacuated." Therese ordered the commando quickly.
"Of course, Lady Therese! Come on! Let's move it!" The right gem commando began giving out orders. The left one in the meantime proceeded to start helping one of his injured comrades up off the ground as more gem commandos landed to help out.
Therese gave more orders to different ofudas. Shortly afterward, several ships landed nearby to evacuate the wounded.
L'Arc wasn't sure about the details though. For him, it was a fight just to stay conscious now that all the adrenaline had left his body.
…
However, after some time, he felt someone gently putting him on his back. And his head was now resting against the softest thing in all of existence.
A wave of green energy passed over L'Arc's form again. It made him aware of how they were inside a ship now, and Therese had taken off all her armor and set it to the side, leaving her in her normal kimono. Her hair had turned a bright green thanks to her magic, and he smiled as she continued to use healing magic on him to ease his pain.
"Your thighs feel great, Therese." L'Arc managed to say cheekily. "Can I sleep on them for the rest of my life?"
…
"I… Idiot…" Therese's body trembled. "I thought I'd lost you."
L'Arc's face saddened as his teasing smirk vanished. Therese had been that worried about him, hadn't she?
"I'm sorry, I was afraid I was going to die there too," L'Arc admitted. "I'm fine though, now that you're here. I swear I won't cause you to worry like that again."
Several tears escaped her eyes at L'Arc's words. "Okay…"
…
"So… back on topic, thigh pillows for life?" The young man managed to waggle his eyebrows at her, diffusing the seriousness of their situation somewhat in his trademark roguish fashion.
"..." Therese merely smiled at him and didn't pause in her repeated use of healing magic. "L'Arc, please don't ruin this…"
L'Arc felt like laughing. "Come on. If I remember correctly, the last time you did this for me was back when we were helping Kizuna face the Demon Dragon's forces inside its continent.
"Man, that was a rough day, I'm pretty sure we both almost died while facing off against the Demon Dragon's Earth General together, but you know, we didn't die, and you almost even-"
"Shhhh…" Therese placed a finger to his lips. She was smiling softly. "Please, rest."
…
L'Arc decided to follow her suggestion for once and closed his eyes. He gave himself up to exhaustion as he enjoyed the feeling of resting against his goddess's thick golden thighs.
Even if the battle was still underway outside, he felt like a victor already.
"There! I see it!"
Glass and Kizuna climbed up on top of one of the shipwrecks.
High up in the sky amidst the Wave Cracks, a giant black dragon with red eyes flew amongst the waves of monsters pouring out into their world.
As Kizuna focused on it, the title: Interdimensional Dragon Emperor appeared on her HUD. This caused a frown to flit across her lips.
"A dragon emperor, huh? This is really starting to feel like a giant callback to the Demon Dragon war all over again." Kizuna commented out loud.
"Yes, only, this time, we don't have the luxury of Ethnobalt's boat to close the distance," Glass replied tensely.
As the two of them watched, one of Sickle's last Invincibles tried to escape from the flying dragon and fired a cannon volley at it to slow it down. Unfortunately, the attack glanced off the boss monster's scales, and the ship and its crew got swallowed in one bite. It happened so high up that Kizuna and Glass couldn't even hear the screams of the crew.
Yeah, this was the Wave Boss. It was far too powerful for anyone else up there to handle. Not even Lapis's newly arrived ships were daring to approach it.
But, despite lacking an easy option to reach it, Kizuna was now far stronger than she had been in the past. And the Wave Boss was still a monster at the end of the day.
"Hey, Glassy, how do you feel about giving me a lil' boost, eh?" Kizuna suddenly asked mischievously.
"Huh- didn't you tell Cole you'd bring it down to us though?!" Glass asked incredulously.
"Well, yea, but I only told him that to make sure that he wouldn't turn into a worrywart and send a whole battalion of guys with us when he learned that I was going to face it thousands of feet in the air." Kizuna rolled her eyes. "You should have realized there's no way my bow weapon form can hit targets that far away. I ain't Itsuki."
"Oh, so you would rather I be the only one to worry then, is that it?!" As Glass yelled, her fan slashed another monster to the side into tiny ribbons of shadow.
"Yep! Great plan, huh!" Kizuna readily agreed.
…
Glass couldn't help but let out a chuckle even as she desperately tried to maintain her scowl. "Pen!" Chris looked confident in his mommy though, and voiced his agreement.
"A lil' boost? Sure." Glass finally said. "But with how tired I am right now, I don't think I could throw you hard enough to reach that thing in one go. And the follow-up landing would be up to you."
"That's fine. As long as there are plenty of ships and monsters to hitch a ride on the way, I shouldn't have a problem." Kizuna's weapon form changed from a bow to her signature fishing rod. "Besides, if I managed to cancel out my fall using a Torii Gate after escaping the Infinite Labyrinth with Naofumi and Rishia, then I think I could manage something else here with just me and Chris."
…
The spirit woman's signature frown took on a determined look as she picked her best friend up.
She did her best to restrain herself from hugging her. Chris took hold of Kizuna's hair and steadied herself on her back.
Then, Glass spun around several times, moving faster with each spin, before stepping forward and launching her best friend into the air like a javelin.
Boom!
Kizuna would later swear that she broke the sound barrier at that moment as she soared up into the sky. Within seconds, she was hundreds of feet off the ground. And Glass's throw peaked her at around fifteen hundred feet. Nearly halfway up to the Wave Boss.
Kizuna did not fall back down, however. Instead, the moment the Hunting Tools Hero reached the apex of her reckless, improvised maneuver, she swung her fishing pole forward, launching the line out like a bullet.
The hook caught onto a passing Interdimensional Wyrm flying overhead, driving itself deep into its flesh like a talon.
The beast roared in surprise, pain, and fear as a sudden weight started to drag it down. Kizuna pulled herself in at lightning pace with the Hunting Tool's reel screeching like a bird of prey and glowing red from the friction, moving far faster than any fishing rod should have ever been able to handle. And that momentum pulled the girl past the monster further up into the air.
Kizuna switched to her strongest Tuna Knife weapon form briefly, cutting through a falling Drake above her, and then she switched to her fishing rod again and used the same method as before to pull herself even higher up into the air by hooking onto the side of a passing Luvar ship that was currently trying to escape the battlefield after receiving orders to fall back from Yomogi.
"Pen!" Chris yelled excitedly, still attached to the back of Kizuna's head as the girl launched herself over the heads of the airship's crew. Most of them paused to stare up at the Hero. First in surprise, and then wonder when they realized what her target was.
Kizuna continued her rapid ascent while repeatedly butchering entire crowds of lesser dragons as she passed through them like a vicious storm of death. Gutting, chopping, slashing, cutting. Any wave monster that got even remotely close to approaching the miniature hero's deceptively long reach quickly met its end. Violently.
With every passing second, Kizuna brought herself closer and closer to where the Wave Boss was at an alarming pace. The boss dragon was still blissfully unaware of the mortal danger that was fast approaching it and was chasing after another ship while surrounded by a series of wave cracks containing hordes of monsters to protect it.
The Wave Boss did finally notice the strange insect that was beelining towards him and forgot about its prey. It let out a roar and a surge of bright red flames erupted from its mouth in Kizuna's direction.
"Flying Sparrow!" Kizuna's skill flew through the air, cutting through the flames before hitting the side of the dragon's head.
It let out a roar of pain, and it buffeted its large wings, creating a maelstrom of wind in front of it in self-defense.
But Kizuna simply latched onto another passing monster and elegantly swung herself to the side while Chris hung on for dear life.
"Pen! Pen! Pen!" Spikes of ice came from the familiar one after another. Tearing through different monsters that tried to converge on Kizuna.
The girl's momentum carried her around a Wave Crack. Her fishing rod changed into a blade again as it found its mark in one monster after another.
The monster swarm here was so thick that she did not need to use her rod. Her boots kicked off hard dark scales, snapping spines and tearing flesh as she used the monsters as platforms for her ascent. She was so quick that most monsters didn't even realize that she was there until their heads were already separated from their bodies.
Explosions of shadow happened one after the other. A path of death was left painted behind Kizuna as she moved further and further up the Wave Crack until she finally cleared it, jumping off of one last monster and diving down towards the Wave Boss's back.
"Lure Needle!" Kizuna's fishing lure stung the center of the dragon's spine in between its wings, making it let out a roar of pain and stagger in the air. Its head moved around frantically, trying to find what it had realized too late was not a mere insect, but an extremely dangerous threat to its life.
At last, the eyes of the two predators met.
But it was already too late.
Kizuna's weapon changed back into her signature tuna knife as she fell toward the spot where she'd applied the x2 damage multiplier. This was it, the move combo that had killed the Demon Dragon in the past.
"Blood Flower Strike!"
…
Time froze for a second as her blade made impact against the large dragon's back. It was one of those moments where reality experienced lag as it caught up to process what had just happened.
The Wave Boss's eyes widened, a brief roar of agony coming from its mouth.
And then, its body exploded into countless tiny and finely cut pieces.
As Kizuna fell through the air, a roar of delight at successfully hunting the Wave Boss escaped her lips.
Despite appearances, this small fry was nothing like the Demon Dragon.
It'd taken two of those attacks to kill it back then. And it hadn't had a magical field surrounding it either.
And that was how Kizuna slayed the Wave Boss thousands of feet in the air all by herself.
"Pen!" Chris looked offended, still hugging to the back of his mommy's head. But the two were quickly obscured by the Wave Cracks that began to glow around them.
Corrin's blade struck against Xander's, causing a shockwave of power to release from the pair.
"Shining Stones: Flame Pillar!" Xander yelled.
Corrin sidestepped to the right, avoiding the pillar of fire that appeared where he'd been standing. He then rushed forward, swinging as he yelled his spell. "Bejeweled Diamond Breeze!" A series of wind slashes came off his blade as he swung over and over.
Xander ducked and dodged as best he could, but some of the wind slashes still cut into him before their blades clashed again. The support and healing magic Corrin had received alongside the debuffs affecting his opponent had made the Emperor of Lapis more than Xander's equal in terms of strength.
Xander pushed forward even as blood leaked from a gash on his cheek. But Corrin pushed back, and his blade came closer to Xander's face.
"Shining Stones: Flaming Sword!" Corrin declared.
Just an inch from his face, Corrin's sword was enveloped in flames. "AH!" Xander cried out as he backpedaled. The right side of his face was burned, and he could no longer open his right eye.
Corrin didn't stop, he swung forward again and again.
Xander backpedaled, trying to meet each one of Corrin's strikes. But he was the one at the disadvantage now.
Corrin's strikes were relentless. The Emperor did not pause even for a second. He pushed his advantage as hard as he could, not leaving Xander any room to catch his breath.
The pain from the minor gashes and injuries that the Luvar General had sustained accumulated more and more until…
Xander's sword finally missed its mark, and Corrin's blade cut clean through the rogue Lazuli noble's right wrist.
"GAH!" Xander cried out as his left hand clutched the stump. But Corrin did not relent even then. His foot slammed into the General's chest, throwing him back over a dozen meters away.
The Emperor breathed in and out heavily. He had a couple of minor cuts on his arms and a small gash on his cheek where Xander had managed to hit him again. But he stood tall, shown to be the clear victor.
Just in time, as a flash of light came from the sky, signaling the defeat of the Wave Boss.
All around, cracks in the air and near the ground slowly began to close. Some of the soldiers were already cheering for the Hunting Tools Hero over her victory high in the sky.
"It's over, Xander. We've won. My ideals have beaten yours." Corrin announced while holding Yato out in front of him. "If you surrender, I promise I'll show you mercy. I'll even consider returning your titles to you if you cooperate.
"We're done spilling blood."
"... … no."
Xander's left hand let go of his wrist. His sword was still lying beside Corrin on the ground, clutched in what had been his right hand. But beside him, Xander picked up the weapon he'd discarded earlier with his remaining hand.
A midnight black lance. The Spear Replica Kyo had made for him.
Corrin's eyes widened in surprise as Xander glared at him. "Not yet."
Xander rushed forward. Moving even faster than before.
"B-Brother!" Corrin deflected the Replica to the side but had to jump out of the way as Xander tried to plow into him with his body.
"NOT YET! Not until it's over!" Xander screamed like a madman. More blood gushed out of the stump of his right arm.
"Brother! No! STOP THIS!" Corrin yelled frantically.
"Lethal Thrust!" Xander didn't stop though. Corrin managed to avoid the lightning-fast skill. But Xander attacked again and again and again like a rabid dog.
"Chaos Thrust! Air Strike Javelin! Lightning Spear!"
There was no form with his weapon whatsoever. Each strike and skill was meant to kill. Whether by charging, thrusting, or whatever.
Corrin backpedaled, avoiding each strike as best he could. He was trying to knock Xander's weapon out of his hand. But Xander's grip on it was like steel, and like the weapons that'd been seen in Sickle's Capital, it looked like Xander's was starting to awaken.
Xander did not stop though, even as his blood coated the ground. His eyes blazed with fury as Corrin used a wind spell to blow him away. "Xander, if you keep on using that weapon, it will kill everyone in the immediate vicinity!" Unlike previous times, there was no Shield Hero to absorb the explosion the weapon would create.
"I know," Xander replied coldly before his gaze moved behind Corrin.
"Corrin!" From behind, Ryoma and Cole finally appeared, running through the soldiers watching the duel. Besides a couple of minor injuries, they looked fine.
"If you want to save everyone here, then stop me." Xander's mouth moved as he began to chant.
Corrin's own eyes widened as he recognized the spell he'd used repeatedly during their duel. And one which he was going to combine with the weapon to get it to awaken and self-destruct. "Brother, STOP! STOP IT!"
"Bejeweled Flame Lance, into Flaming Thr-"
"STOP ITTTTTTTTTTT!" Corrin lunged forward, Yato slamming Xander's Replica weapon to the side before finding itself buried in the man's chest.
The Onyx Gem Person's spell-skill combo died on his lips.
…
A look of shock appeared on Corrin's face.
"... no…"
Xander fell to one knee, his weapon falling inert onto the ground beside him.
Corrin looked down in horror. "No, NO! BROTHER!"
The man coughed up blood from his mouth. His lips had stretched into a strained smile.
The eye on the weapon closed. It did not awaken.
Corrin grabbed the hilt of his blade. He looked intent on pulling it out so healing magic could be used on the man, but Xander's hand firmly gripped Yato's hilt, keeping it planted in place.
"Brother?"
...
Xander looked into his brother's eyes and then slowly shook his head.
"Xander, please, I don't want to lose another sibling!" Corrin cried out.
Xander said nothing though. His eyes looked beyond his brother at something only he could see.
"Come on, Big Brother. You've caused enough trouble for Corrin as is. It's time to go home now."
Xander coughed again. The pain in his smile disappeared. "Yes… of course… El… ise…" His hand let go of the sword, and his body collapsed to the side.
His eyes stared lifelessly up above as he released his last breath.
"Brother… Brother…!"
Luvar's commander… the Emperor's brother, was dead.
The final cracks in the sky closed, and more cheers rose from the army as the light of the evening sun was revealed in the sky above. Shining down on the coalition's victory over the Wave and Luvar's forces.
You, are the ocean's, gray Waves!
"Rafu?" Raph-Chan perked up on the ground next to her sister as their parents rushed Kyo.
What… what was this powerful soul presence she was suddenly feeling?
She looked around and then noticed it floating in the air by the unconscious Bow Hero. It seemed that Filo's voice had just activated it too.
It took Rifana only a second of studying the powerful soul to figure out who it was. The shikigami grinned widely when she realized that she had the perfect accompanist ready for her older sister.
And it seemed this person was not only eager to help out but capable of staying around far longer than Keichi had been able to. Her death must have been more recent in the history of this world. Either that or the Gem Race had powers beyond what they knew about.
'Way to go, big Sis Filo. This will make your voice truly shine.'
Raph-Chan began dancing around Filo, harnessing the soul presence she'd found and allowing it to manifest by the young girl.
A tall, blue-haired young woman with a sapphire embedded in her right hand appeared, shimmering in the air next to Filo. Without saying anything or pausing to take in the situation she was thrust into, she lifted the spirit of the Vassal Musical Instruments in her hands. In an instant, the weapon separated into multiple different forms.
It was like an orchestra had suddenly appeared. Ghostly trumpets, violins, clarinets, flutes, a whole brass section, and a percussion section too. All of which began playing in their turn.
Close to the site of the battle near Luvar's capital, an armada of airships was waiting on standby, ready to swoop in and eliminate whoever was left alive when the battle concluded. And on the top deck of one of the armada's flagships, one of the commanders visibly frowned and put his hand on his weapon.
"Is something wrong?" The Harpoon Hero asked his partner in crime for this endeavor that they chose to cooperate for.
"My weapon spirit… it feels like it's absent right now for some reason." Miyaji, the Musical Instruments Hero, replied coldly; sounding agitated.
"My lord! My lord! Urgent status update!" An officer ran up to the pair, looking flustered. "Heavy reinforcements have just arrived at the battlefield! They are carrying the empire's banners!"
"What? How the hell-" The Harpoon Hero rushed into the ship's interior to get a more detailed report. Miyaji cussed quietly and followed after him. So much for free loot.
With the situation growing more chaotic and unpredictable, the musical instruments hero quickly forgot the odd sensation he had felt earlier and never learned that his weapon spirit had slipped out, and was performing a song to accompany Filo's multiple talented voices at that moment.
Ahhhhhhhhhh, ah ah Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!
"RAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kyo's howl of fury shook the air again as a wave of cursed fire along with a deep discordant tune came out of his mouth. It desperately tried to stifle the violins as they took over the accompaniment.
The area in front of the Shield Hero was consumed in powerful flames. Made even stronger by Kyo's rising fury.
"Second Shield!" Naofumi's skill shield appeared in front of Kyo's mouth, causing him to choke on his flames. The glow around the Shield Hero and his companion brightened, as unbeknownst to them, Azura's song had begun buffing their stats.
As that happened, Raphtalia appeared next to the rogue Book Hero's leg, her blade charged up with an attack skill. "Instant Blade: Mist!"
The Katana Hero's sword cut deep through the flesh and tendons of the dragon's thigh, forcing him down to one knee as Naofumi charged him. As he did so, the shield hero's fiery sabatons left hissing patches of cursed fire in his wake.
"AHAHAHA! DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT I AM DONE, JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ABLE TO MOVE IN MY GRAVITY FIELD AND DAMAGE ME NOW!?" Kyo's tail moved around to attack Naofumi.
His Wrath Shield moved in the way of the attack though. And its counter activated again, causing the Book Demon to howl in immense pain once more.
"I wonder what she'd think if she saw you like this." Naofumi calmly spoke out, continuing with his earlier thoughts while Raphtalia slashed pages out of the air around herself. "To see the person she cared so much about reduced to such a twisted and lowly state. Lashing out at everything and everyone around him.
"I can only imagine how much Yomogi would cry after realizing how far you'd fallen. And she'd blame herself for it, thinking that it was her fault for failing to help you in time."
"I'd know that much at least, since Raphtalia went through the same thing with me. The two of them really are quite alike."
Kyo howled in anger again as more of his pages converged on the Shield Hero instead of his companion.
Sing with me a song
Of birthrights and love
The light scatters to the sky above
Dawn breaks through the gloom
White as a bone
Lost in thoughts, all alone
Naofumi didn't even summon a skill shield to protect himself. The pages simply bounced off of him, dealing little to no damage. Quite a few of them also got burned away by the spirals of fire floating around the Shield Hero.
"Crescent Moon Sword!" Having had a moment to charge up a skill with her weapon, a slash of energy slammed into the side of Kyo's face, breaking his attention on the Shield Hero. The dragon's scowl deepened as one of his hands covered the wound while he turned to attack Raphtalia.
However, as he did so, Naofumi popped up in front of him again. And the fistful of cursed fire that Kyo had been planning to use on the half-Tanuki hero slammed into Naofumi's Cursed Shield again instead.
Kyo was once more covered in powerful cursed flames. Causing him to scream as he staggered backward. "HOW!? EVEN IF YOU CAN STAND AND RUN, YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO JUMP TO MY HEIGHT IN THIS GRAVITY-"
"Don't try to deny it by the way. I saw the truth for myself earlier when Ethnobalt called you out for your bull &^%$.".
"And while we're on that topic, you clearly hold a high degree of respect for him too. You dropped your whole charade as soon as he called you out for being a liar. He saw through you before even Kizuna did."
"SHUT UP!" Kyo punched Naofumi's Cursed Shield again, and again, and again. Despite being forced to endure blasts of cursed flames repeatedly because of it.
The fifth time finally forced the Book Hero to fall back again. As the cursed flames outpaced his rate of regeneration for his arms by a wide margin. "Composition of Flame!"
Kyo summoned a demonic-looking paper construct to try and attack Naofumi instead.
"Shield Bash."
Using the Cursed Shield again to use the skill, Naofumi slammed it into the large construct. Destroying it in one shot.
Kyo howled in frustration as he moved to send more of his massive page swarm at the Shield Hero over and over again. At least that ranged attack of his wouldn't set off a counter of cursed fire.
Raphtalia paused in her preparations to look at Naofumi worriedly. But he was still smiling calmly.
The pages really weren't leaving much of a mark on him at all. And more of them were disappearing into those weird spiral flames surrounding his body.
"You tried so hard to push your friends away. Yet even though you almost convinced Glass to commit suicide. Even though you attacked L'Arc and Therese intending to kill them.
"They all were still willing to listen to Kizuna. To try and save you, instead of seeking revenge.
"That was pretty selfless on their part, I admit. I know I wouldn't have been able to let go of a grudge like that, no matter what. But they were, no, they still are willing to do that since they love Kizuna and want what she wants. And what she wants is to have you back." Naofumi continued to speak with great confidence.
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE WANTS! STOP THINKING YOU CAN LECTURE ME WHEN YOU COULDN'T HAVE KNOWN HER FOR MORE THAN A FEW WEEKS-"
"Oh, looks like you charged it up with your relentless ranged attacks." Naofumi suddenly interrupted the tirade. "Let's see what this does."
"Vulcan's Retribution!"
The Cursed Shield in front of him grew a gun barrel out of the center of it, similar to what'd happened with the Spirit Tortoise Heart Shield before when Ost helped Naofumi attack her core. And before Kyo could comprehend what he was seeing, a large blast of energy emerged from the barrel. Enveloping him in a beam of cursed fire.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kyo's howl of pain and suffering shook the ground of the crater.
"Oh, so that's what it does. Neat. Now I can even counter ranged attacks if these flames around me absorb enough ranged damage." Naofumi commented after looking at the flaming spirals around him. "Looks like the damage for this counter is static though, just like with everything else on this shield.
"Oh well, not like I'd be interested in using it to attack anyway."
"Wha- Naofumi, wait, isn't this too much? It looks like-" Raphtalia started to ask unsurely.
"Nah, watch. He's totally going to be capable of healing from that still." Naofumi pointed out calmly again.
Sure enough, several seconds after the powerful counter had faded, Kyo's misshapen form stumbled out of the cloud of smoke that'd surrounded him. The wounds all over his body were grievous, but he was still healing.
And the Book Demon still looked beyond pissed too, based on what they could discern from the remains of his face in the aftermath of that attack. The Cursed Tomes in his chest were burning with an even greater intensity compared to before.
"I did warn you that I'd beat you within an inch of your life first before we were done. Shall we continue?" Naofumi taunted the dragon with a stone-hard expression.
"̴̱̦̭͉̇͑͆Ǎ̷̬̮͂̇̒̑H̷̡̝̫͗̀͘͝͠H̶͍̼͝H̸̰͇̏̌͘H̷͖̘̘͍̹́̔̇͠͝Ḥ̷̭͖̀̚H̸̟̙̝̉͂́̑͠H̷̨̡̡̱̾̕H̷̖͓̀̂H̴̹̤͗̈͒̊H̸̨͍̹̺̕Ȟ̷̢͍́͒̚H̸̙́̒̀̚H̵̲͚̰͈͝Ḩ̴̨̤͎̰̈́̓͛͋͒H̶̨͓̤̣̜̎̈́͒̊Ḥ̸̢̳͆͑̓͊͆H̷̠̹̼̹̅̓̄͆͐H̸͇̰̭̐̆͛͊͌H̸̟͕̭̊̓͘H̶͎̗̤̣̊̊H̶̬̭̫̫͊ͅḦ̸̭́̽̆H̶̪̑͗!̵̳̰̼͔̂"̶̸͈̥̘̦͙̑̄̑̒͘͝
Little did he know, as Filo kept singing and the soul with her kept playing, the Gravity Field around them was continuing to weaken as Kyo's magic stat was lowered and lowered on his HUD while the stats of everyone else was made higher and higher. This made the Shield and Katana Hero's movements that much easier for them to execute.
Earlier, it had been because Kyo briefly lost his focus on increasing the field of gravity on the Shield Hero. But now, the magical song was making the Book Hero's new powerful cursed form lose power. And no amount of anti-magic could stop it anymore.
"Primal Release!" Kyo tried shouting the ability to cancel out the magic in the area again, only for it to fizzle out when it tried to cancel out the power of Filo's song. "DAAAAAAAAMN IIIIIT!"
The field of gravity had weakened around Filo so much that she was able to take to the air again at last. So Filo sang loud and proud while Book Guy focused on her Daddy thanks to him jumping in front of the dragon's face with another skill shield when he tried to launch more cursed fire at the humming fairy.
Naofumi then summoned another Air Strike Shield, protecting Raphtalia from a part of the swarm of pages that tried to attack her.
"HA! SO THAT'S THE EXTENT OF YOUR POWER UP!? PATHETIC! IF I FOCUS ON YOUR ALLIES, THEN YOU CAN'T ABSORB ANY OF MY RANGED ATTACKS! YOU'll NEVER HIT ME WITH THAT WEIRD BEAM ATTACK AGAIN AT THIS RATE-"
"Counter." Naofumi made a calculated jump and leaped in front of Kyo's face again. His feet left a trail of flames in the air. "It's a counter, not an actual attack."
The Book Demon stumbled back in surprise. "Wha- AGAIN! YOU JUMPED THIS HIGH AGAIN WHEN GRAVITY IS-"
"As I have already said, I am not attacking you. I'm just countering what you do. This Cursed Shield doesn't raise my attack." Naofumi put his Cursed Shield forward while somehow sinking slowly in the air. "Unlike every other Shield I have, this one gives me counters and skills that do a lot of static damage. That's all that's going on. Nothing too complicated about it."
"Wha- STOP LECTURING ME! WHO DO YOU THINK I AM, YOU STUPID-" Kyo tried to land an uppercut under Naofumi's Shield to hit him.
But even though Naofumi should have fallen right into his fist, the Shield Hero just kicked to the side, and more flames launched from his feet as he deftly sidestepped Kyo's attack, making the latter stumble forward into his Cursed Shield once more.
Its counter activated again, bathing Kyo's face in cursed fire even as Raphtalia appeared underneath him.
"Stardust Blade!" Raphtalia's skill launched waves of stars into Kyo's face over and over again.
He roared and started to backpedal, trying to protect his head from further injury while sending out more cursed pages in the Katana Hero's way.
Naofumi appeared in front of her this time as well, however. He took the attack and burned more pages out of the air with his mere presence. He gave Raphtalia a thumbs up and a grateful smile before they charged Kyo together again.
During that time, Filo's soul accompanist adjusted the tune to the next verse for Filo. And Filo dove headlong into it with all the might her impressive vocal cords possessed.
Sing with me a song
Of conquest and fate
The Black Pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day
Hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts, all alone.
Rishia stirred and then slowly sat up. The remains of a Healing Crystal were visible in her hands.
The green-haired girl's eyes moved between the battle before her and the unconscious Bow Hero still being treated by the Otherworld Heroes for his injuries behind her.
In front of her, the Shield Hero and his family were battling Kyo. Holding him in check and preventing him from being able to harm anyone who tried to get back up.
Dou-Lon was struggling to get to his feet by the dancing Raph-Chan. His katana was gripped tightly in one of his hands, and his eyes looked fiercely determined to help out no matter what.
Rishia wanted to help too. She didn't know where she wanted to help though. Part of her wanted to assist Naofumi in defeating Kyo…
And yet the other part wanted her to crawl over to Itsuki. To escape this Gravity Field and hug him tightly so she could help him through the mental turmoil he was surely going through right now.
She knew. She'd felt his pain even through the Cursed Injuries she'd sustained. She'd seen the look in his eyes. And now, despite him being unconscious, she could see the look of pain and the tear tracks running down his face.
He had pulled that Bow out again, and he'd hurt her again.
Not just her, but Aksel and Maya too.
Itsuki was not going to be in a good place upon his awakening. He needed Rishia's help now, more than ever.
And yet…
…
Rishia's eyes glinted with determination.
Naofumi and Raphtalia needed her assistance too. She had to help defeat Kyo as fast as possible, so she'd be able to spend as much time with Itsuki as needed to help him move past what'd happened!
And besides that, Rishia needed to show Itsuki that she was okay. That she still wanted to fight by his side, despite what'd happened. She still loved him just as much, if not more than before!
Yes, she was willing to admit it now! She loved Itsuki Kawasumi and she wanted him to know that! She'd never get the chance if they didn't survive here first!
She turned her head towards Kyo, straining against the Gravity Field to raise herself from the ground.
Her Hengen Muso abilities activated, increasing her stats to try and help her out. But it did nothing against Kyo's life force-enhanced magic.
She didn't care! She was going to push through no matter how hard she had to try to do so!
A new glow, one that wasn't life force, began to surround her form.
…
Nearby, where he'd been unconscious until Naofumi's Ray of Hope had healed all of his Cursed Injuries, Aksel was also struggling to get onto one knee.
"A-Aksel, what are you doing?" Maya voiced her concern next to him. She looked relieved that Aksel was awake again and had managed to roll himself off of her. She'd even managed to crawl over to hug him despite the Gravity Field still being active.
Yet now, she was confused about why he was struggling so much to stand up.
"Isn't it obvious?" Aksel groaned in effort. "I want to help them out." He pointed towards where Naofumi and Raphtalia were still fighting Kyo on their own. "I can't do that if I continue lying on the ground."
He finally got to one knee, a monumental task in and of itself. Still, he smirked in victory. It was like he could feel the gravity field around him weakening with every second.
At this rate, he might even be able to swing his axe again. He'd be able to stand up and fight, and…
As his hand moved to the ground beside him to pick up his weapon, Maya's hand covered his.
He stopped moving as his face looked up to find hers staring pleadingly at him.
"Please… don't." She begged, tears in her eyes. "We both know now that this is a battle for Heroes. Not for people like you and me."
"Maya?" Aksel asked in surprise.
"I… I know it's selfish. I feel terrible saying it. But I almost thought I'd lost you earlier…" The raccoon girl sniffled as her head hung in front of her. "I don't want to see it happen for real. I don't want to lose you again."
"Please, just leave it to Raphtalia and the others. We can go help out Sir Itsuki instead. Just… just please don't join the fight and risk your life again!
"You've done more than enough… you shouldn't have to give more when we already tried our best to help out!"
When Maya had been a child, she'd lost everything. Her town. Her home. Her family. Her friends.
She'd been horribly mistreated and malnourished as a slave. Her fate had been to die under some sick twisted master long before she would have ever become of age.
However, her life changed the night Itsuki and his friends rescued her. She found a new home. She found a new family. She found new friends and new strength to live on. And most importantly for her, she found a new love for the knight kneeling in front of her.
It hadn't been easy. There were plenty of misunderstandings along the way after she rapidly developed, and the both of them experienced more loss and hardship before they finally got together and had to go through some needless drama even after that. Their relationship was far from perfect still, yet she knew that she loved him. And she didn't- no, she couldn't bear the thought of losing him.
Not now, not ever.
It was selfish. And you could say she focused too much on her boyfriend over herself. But she'd already lost so much in the past. She couldn't imagine going back to her former life. And after what'd happened earlier, she had every reason to be afraid.
"Please… don't…" She quietly sobbed.
…
A rough, calloused hand rested between her ears, surprising her and making her look up.
Aksel was smiling softly at her. A look of sincerity in his bright brown eyes. "You might be right.
"Perhaps we've both done what we could and should stay back and just watch everything unfold. This is a battle for the Heroes, after all.
"I can't lie. I almost thought I'd lost you earlier too… I was so scared that you and I were going to die and…" His face briefly fell.
He knew it too. He knew they both had a long way to go before they could become the ideal couple. They were still young and inexperienced. Not to mention, Aksel knew that he was an idiot, especially when it came to girls.
He did not know how to act around Maya all the time despite his best efforts to learn. He was afraid that he'd mess up, that he or she would become too clingy and dependent on one another, and that he'd be the reason they were unable to form and develop healthy bonds with those around them. Or, even worse, that he'd end up driving the two of them apart at some point through his words or actions.
Such thoughts scared him. He didn't want to selfishly take the happiness Maya gave him. He wanted to double that happiness and return it to her. He wanted to live a life where they could be happy, surrounded by their family and friends.
"And that is why I need to- no, that is why I have to fight."
With that in mind, the man was not going to let his faults and weaknesses prevent him from at least trying to become a little better for her sake.
Maya looked surprised at the look of tenderness and care that flashed through Aksel's eyes for her, a look that then quickly hardened into resolve. "You are important to me, Maya. I love you more than anyone else in the whole world."
"The last thing I want is to be the cause of your unhappiness. I want to give you a life where we can live in peace and experience joy amongst our family and friends."
Maya stared, awestruck as the glow that was surrounding Rishia right now also began to surround the large man.
"So, just know, I've been working hard to improve myself for a reason!"
Again, it was not life force. It was something else entirely.
The glow originated from Itsuki. Or rather, from the weapon at his side.
"That day, when we were fighting the Spirit Tortoise alongside Sir Naofumi, Bakta had the strength to put everything on the line for all of our happiness. He and Welt were even willing to sacrifice their lives if it meant saving the Hero they cared about.
"Those two didn't just do their part. They went above and beyond what was required of them."
…
Aksel's smile turned into a cocky smirk. "My weak bro and best friend helped me realize what true strength was that day. So now, I don't have a choice but to accept it."
"I want to put my life on the line for you and our Heroes!" Aksel yelled.
"Yeah!" Rishia agreed beside him.
Aksel finally stood up at his full height. Both he and Rishia were now facing Kyo while the glow around the pair intensified.
"BAKTA, YOU HEAR ME, YOU ILLITERATE BASTARD!?" Aksel roared at the sky. "I'M GOING TO BEAT YOU TO A PULP WHEN WE MEET AGAIN IN THE AFTERLIFE! I STILL HAVEN'T FORGIVEN YOU FOR LEAVING ALL OF US THAT DAY!"
"BUT IN THE MEANTIME, YOU CAN BE DAMN SURE THAT I'LL USE ALL MY STRENGTH TO PROTECT MAYA AND THE WORLD WE LOVE! I SWEAR IT UPON MY NAME!"
Rifana was still focused on keeping the spirit of the former Musical Instruments Hero Azura there in the present, however, she was able to look in Aksel and Rishia's direction at his yell. And while her eyes briefly widened in surprise, she smiled a little as well, seeing a familiar figure standing next to the knight.
So he had decided to stick around instead of passing on after all.
Bakta had a hand resting on his brother's shoulder, and a light smirk could be seen on his ghostly face. "I hear you, bro. I hear you loud and clear. But do you have to be so dramatic about it? I've been learning how to read since my death, you know."
Ren's former party tank shook his head in exasperation. "I'll try not to be too jealous of the fact that the weapon chose you over me, but eh, you fit what it wanted better anyway.
"Use that drive to protect our world, brother. Keep my family safe, and make sure you follow through with those wedding plans with Maya after this. Or else I'll stay around to haunt you for real." The stout ghostly man laughed.
At last, two bright lights came out of Itsuki's gemstone. Converging on the glowing members of Itsuki's party and covering them from view.
Maya put a hand to her eyes, but as she stared at her boyfriend and friend, her eyes slowly widened.
The axe Aksel had been holding fell to the side. And as the light around him faded, a new ethereal-looking axe could be seen in his hands. One that had a gemstone embedded in its head.
Next to him, with the light fading around her, Rishia was also shown to be holding a new weapon. A pair of ghostly throwing knives with gemstones embedded in their hilts.
For some reason, the weapons were lacking a corporeal form. But, nevertheless, they were genuine articles without a doubt.
Rishia
Job Class changed to Projectiles Hero!
Aksel
Job Class changed to Axe Hero!
The pair had just been chosen by two of the Vassal Weapons of their world. Their stat builds were altered, thanks to their new status as Heroes. And the new weapon and skill menus appeared on their HUDs as well.
Aksel whooped at the rush of power that flowed through his body. He had no idea what was going on, but he was also ecstatic to see that he had access to a few skills already. He was now strong enough to freely move in Kyo's weakening Gravity Field.
"Come on, Rishia! Our Heroes need our help!" The Seven Star Axe Hero grinned with mad glee as he pointed his new weapon in Kyo's direction.
"Right!" Rishia was already charging the large Book Demon. The throwing knives she was holding glowed at her sides.
Aksel rushed in right behind her. The axe he was carrying also began to glow. And above them, Filo sang a verse, celebrating the additions to the battlefield as Azura's song began to strengthen the pair further.
Sing, with me, a song
Of silence and blood
The rain falls, but can't wash, away the mud
Within my ancient heart dwells
Madness and pride
Can no one, hear my cry?
Kyo dodged Raphtalia's next skill, only for his eyes to finally spot the rapidly approaching duo of freshly minted Heroes.
"What the- HOW THE HELL ARE YOU TWO-"
"Air Strike Throw!"
"Power Break!"
Rishia's first skill threw an ethereal copy of the knives she was holding through the air into one of Kyo's eyes.
Aksel's first skill, coming right behind the fueh girl's, sent him rocketing through the air, causing his body to smash into the Book Demon's torso like a cannonball.
Unlike before, Kyo did not just stumble back. He was forcefully slammed down into the ground by the tank of Itsuki's party through pure strength.
"GAH! HOW?! JUST HOW-"
"Float Katana!" Raphtalia appeared behind his head as a second katana appeared in her hands. Kyo tried to turn around to aim his pages at the half-tanuki girl, only for Aksel to slam his axe into the right side of the dragon's chest, carving it open to expose the two glowing cursed tomes stored within and causing Kyo to howl in surprise pain.
"Brave Blade: Mist!" Raphtalia then slashed forward, both her blades forming into a cross that slammed into the left side of Kyo's chest.
The cursed float tome embedded in the Book Hero visibly cracked, but didn't shatter entirely.
"GAHHHHHH!" Kyo covered himself in cursed fire, forcing Aksel to let go as Raphtalia retreated.
As Kyo got back up, Aksel moved next to Naofumi's side. He was burned, but otherwise ok.
"Heh, now how was that for an entrance?" Aksel asked cockily.
"Ray of Hope." Naofumi healed the cursed burns from the tank before answering. "Pretty good. Well done. Be more careful though, if you get yourself hurt again, I'm not healing you till after the battle."
"Wha- hey! Why not?!" Aksel pouted at the Shield Hero.
Raphtalia and Rishia groaned on Naofumi's other side as well.
"Shush. We are not done yet. Eyes on the prize, everyone." The shield hero spoke out before focusing on Kyo again who was currently busy howling with fury.
Naofumi couldn't even tell what the Book Demon was saying anymore. It sounded more insane and animalistic than any of his previous howls. The cursed purple fire covered some of the dragon's pages and fell in their position.
"Oh, so he can light them on fire." Naofumi pointed out idly.
The Shield Hero then started moving left and right in front of Aksel, Raphtalia, and Rishia. The three seemed surprised at just how fast Naofumi was moving. It was like he was leaving afterimages in his wake.
Then again, the Gravity Field had significantly weakened at this point. Even nonhero participants of the battle like Dou-Lon and Maya were almost able to stand on their own two feet by now.
Maya was still looking in awe at her boyfriend… hero boyfriend now. Tears were also beginning to fall more rapidly down the sides of her face.
He'd… he'd grown so much since they'd first met. She never could have imagined a Hero Weapon would choose him to wield it. And the love and care that'd been in his gaze...
Kyo quickly cut the page attack off when it became apparent that Naofumi was just absorbing everything that Kyo was sending at the Shield Hero. Not even a single cursed burn had been left on Naofumi's body from how much weaker the attack had felt.
Raphtalia and Aksel's attacks had briefly revealed the two cursed tomes fused to Kyo's chest. But as everyone watched, the demon's heinous wounds healed over once again. Though the cursed gem of the Tome of Wrath still looked visibly cracked.
"IT'S ALL POINTLESS! YOU'LL NEVER WIN! ALL OF THIS IS MEANINGLESS!"
"Wrong." Naofumi raised his Blessed Shield. He'd tried it before on his allies, but after using it again on Aksel, and seeing how Kyo's power was tied to his Curse Series, he wanted to see what it'd do to him. "Ray of Hope!"
This close, Kyo had no hope of dodging the beam of light that slammed into him.
Kyo's howl was mixed with Naofumi's pained scream as a trail of agony and countless different feelings went through both of their minds simultaneously in the brief seconds that the skill was active.
Naofumi did not see any particular memories of Kyo's. Everything was muddy at best.
Yet, the feelings that he had managed to pick up on… anger and pride were obviously at the forefront. But behind them was…
Pain, misery, loneliness, despair, and above all of that, an intense sense of guilt that interweaved everything down to the Book Hero's core.
Naofumi's heart fell just a little bit. It became all too understandable now why Kyo had those guest rooms reserved for his friends. Why, even after he'd cleared out the rest of his mansion, he couldn't bring himself to let that part of himself go.
No. He still hadn't let that part of him go. Even after destroying his own home, even after falling so far, he still wanted to give his friends a chance to escape the destruction of this world. He wanted them to survive even while he dragged everything else around him into oblivion.
"Naofumi?" Raphtalia asked worriedly as the Shield Hero staggered back. The Blessed Armor around him also flickered, hiding something darker underneath.
"Well... if there was ever any doubt left before whether Kizuna was right or not, there is none now." Naofumi grimaced as he looked at his HUD again.
12:00
He hadn't taken a defense debuff, at the very least. However, it looked like he'd shaved some time off the timer using that skill. That hadn't been a good idea.
However, looking at Kyo, it became apparent that Ray of Hope had left him far worse for the wear than the backlash that Naofumi had endured.
The dragon's skin was still searing from holy burns, and unlike the cursed burns from earlier, the scales on his chest and arms weren't regenerating at all.
Beyond that, his multi-colored serpentine eyes had dimmed somewhat. And in his gray eye, a hint of blue could be seen. "What… what did you just do to me?" Kyo's voice came out, sounding scared and weak.
"Kyo," Naofumi spoke confidently as he stepped forward again. "Let me explain to you in advance why we are going to win today."
Kyo scowled and raised his tail to strike Naofumi, except…
"The reason for it is quite simple. It's because you're alone."
…
…
Kyo's eyes widened, only to fall.
The tint of blue in his gray eye spread into his red one as well.
"Call it generic, call it corny, call it predictable and banal, if you want. But it won't change anything. I am fighting alongside all my friends for their sakes. And they fight for my sake as well.
"All of us are far stronger fighting together than apart. You, however, pushed all of your friends away."
"Our fight has a purpose in it, Kyo. Yours does not. The fact that you couldn't even answer my question earlier confirms it. In your own words…"
"You are fighting for nothing."
Kyo did not say anything in response. He prepared another blast of dragon fire in his mouth, but his unleashment of it was not accompanied by an angry howl like all the previous times when Naofumi blocked it with Meteor Shield.
Because the Book Hero knew there was nothing he could say to refute the Shield Hero's words. Absolutely nothing.
"I'll repeat this again. Surrender, and I'll bring you before your friends so they can help you. They want to help you." Naofumi urged.
Kyo was alone… and fighting without any reason to. The guilt in his heart was consuming him. He had become so lost and was only now beginning to see that for himself.
He didn't want this, he didn't want any of this, and yet, what choice did he have? There was nothing he could do...
…
The blue tint in Kyo's eyes vanished, and he shook his head as another roar burst from his mouth. This one sounded more primal than before.
"Naofumi, I'm not sure we'll be able to reach through to him by talking." Rishia pointed out worriedly.
Naofumi frowned as well as he moved his Cursed Skill to block Kyo's dragon tail. Even after the cursed counter activated though, Kyo slammed his clawed hands into the Shield over and over again.
Naofumi was forced to move the shield away, simply because the Demon Lord didn't relent even after being sprayed with cursed fire again and again and again. After all, the Shield Hero's goal wasn't to kill Kyo anymore.
"Air Strike Throw! Second Throw! Dritte Throw!" Rishia threw more knife skills, but this time she threw them at the area around the Book Demon. Then she used another skill after those three. "Tornado Throw!"
The three knives rose into the air, spinning around Kyo and forming a tornado.
"GRAWHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Book Demon howled as the tornado cut into his skin over and over again. But he still pushed through the pain, striking at the group again with enough force to shatter Naofumi's Meteor Shield and causing his allies to scatter. The shards of the skill left hanging in the air didn't deter Kyo in the slightest.
Naofumi frowned. Filo's song was definitely weakening Kyo's magic, but his Cursed Series was making his physical attacks grow stronger and stronger the more animalistic the demon dragon became.
"Raphtalia, do you have any ideas?" Naofumi asked his girlfriend.
"I… I'm not sure. We could try to destroy the skill-based cursed tome in his chest since it's just a construct, but that won't deal with the other cursed tome." She answered as she slashed pages from the air around her.
Naofumi looked at Kyo again, who let out a primal howl as another wave of dragon breath covered the area where Aksel had been standing previously.
The Axe Hero though came down from the sky, slamming the blunt end of his weapon onto the top of the dragon's head. Kyo stumbled to the ground, his dragon breath cutting off. Yet he still swiped with clawed hands at the Axe Hero, forcing him to defend with his ethereal weapon. He then snapped with his jaws at Rishia, who lithely sidestepped out of the way as her knives dug into the skin of the dragon's face.
The way Kyo was fighting now.
It was almost like…
Note: Target has become a monster eligible to be targeted by the skill "True Pandora's Box"!
The notification suddenly appeared on Naofumi's HUD. He was so caught off guard that he almost didn't react to Kyo swiping his tail at him again in time.
After blocking the attack, he quickly pulled up the description for the blessed skill on his shield while Aksel and Rishia both tag-teamed the Book Demon together with Raphtalia supporting them from behind.
The skill's description hadn't changed much. But it looked like the debuff from using it was lower. Naofumi could adjust for how long the target was sealed after it was used. It would also notify him whether a non-monster was eligible to have the skill used on them.
The Shield Hero didn't know why the notification hadn't popped up earlier in the battle. Was it because of the line of thought that he had earlier…? But he guessed that since Kyo did have some good left in him, as he'd come to find out for himself just a short while ago, then it was because of the Book Hero's transformation progressing to the point where he was more of a monster than a human that Naofumi had received this notification.
"Naofumi, you look like you just had an idea." Raphtalia looked at him as she paused by his side again, breathing heavily from exertion.
"Yeah. I'm going to hit him with the same skill I used on Balamus." Naofumi looked at the roaring monster in front of them again. It was an unlikely but plausible solution… only, there were two problems. The first was the wings on the Book Demon's back. They made Kyo too large to fit him into the prerequisite skill.
The second problem was the remaining pages that the demon had flying around him. He'd used them plenty of times to destroy Naofumi's other shield skills before. Like his physical attacks, they were being made stronger the more powerful his Cursed Series became.
"We have to clip all four of his wings simultaneously so he'll fit inside Shield Prison. We'll also have to destroy the rest of his page swarm and probably the Tome of Wrath with it too, to ensure that he's stunned for long enough to not try and escape the skill. Do you think you and the others could do all that?" Naofumi asked his girlfriend.
Raphtalia thought about it for only a brief moment, then nodded her head at Naofumi.
As much work as it'd take to make all that happen, they could do it. They'd accomplished crazier feats in the past, after all.
"Huah!" Aksel and Raphtalia charged in to slash with their weapons simultaneously.
Naofumi worked in tandem to protect them with his shield skills.
Rishia continued running around, attacking Kyo with her new weapons while simultaneously slashing pages out of the air around her.
And Azura's playing covered over the entire field alongside Filo's voice. Blanketing everything in the power of their combined Performance Magic.
The Gravity Field that Kyo had summoned earlier shattered entirely as that happened.
"Alright! Let's do this!" Dou-Lon rushed forward, his katana gleaming in the light of the fires around them and the glow that surrounded his body.
Maya shook her head, a smile finally forming on her face as she continued to watch Aksel.
That stupid lovable brute, inspiring her to give more of herself for this battle… her kunai flashed in her hands as she rushed low to the ground. Closing the distance while Dou-Lon joined Aksel and Raphtalia in fighting Kyo's dragon form up close.
"Shine Axe Burst!" Aksel's axe emitted a burst of light as he swung it at Kyo's face, blinding the dragon and causing his arm to miss blocking his strike.
"Misty Moon!" Lowering her sword, Raphtalia slashed upwards. Unlike Crescent Moon Sword, this attack released a dark, ghostly moon-like disk that slashed into Kyo's chest. Exposing the Tome of Wrath to their attacks again.
"Knife Rain!" Rishia threw one of her knives into the sky, and it came down on Kyo in the form of many knives.
His pages moved to protect him from the attack. But the knives cut through the cursed paper easily, only barely being stopped by Kyo's massive wings before they could land on his head.
That just made it easier for Dou-Lon and Maya to strike simultaneously while Kyo was distracted by that skill attack.
"Huah!" "Ha!" The two demi-humans lunged together, their weapons slamming into the Cursed Tome simultaneously and cracking it further.
Kyo roared again as more of his pages moved to attack them, only to be absorbed by Naofumi again as he moved to protect the non-heroes.
The other Heroes flitted around Kyo's monstrous form. Not even needing Naofumi to protect them anymore as they weaved and broke through Kyo's various attacks.
Also, while the page swarm around Kyo had been huge initially, it was looking smaller and smaller as more time passed.
New pages weren't being released from the tomes trapped in the dragon's chest. And if they kept this up, then Kyo would be forced to release his transformation to add the pages to his arsenal again.
Kyo didn't seem cognizant of this though. He was just roaring in rage like a cornered monster.
"Flame Charge!" Flames covered Aksel's body as he dashed forward, similar to his other skill from earlier. The pages that moved into his path to stop him burned away, and the man's body slammed into Kyo's gut, launching him several feet back. Yet as the dragon tried to retaliate, Aksel disappeared in a blur of speed.
Aksel's latest skill had not only dealt a lot of fire damage to the Book Demon. It'd also given him a temporary speed buff. And the distraction only made it easier for his girlfriend to stab the large monster in the back with her kunai.
"GRAWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Naofumi kept on observing the battle, waiting for the right opening for everyone to attack and put Kyo where he wanted him.
They could win without killing him, it was only a matter of time and patience.
He moved to absorb more pages sent at Dou-Lon, but Kyo diverted them at the last second.
Even in his monstrous state, it looked like Kyo was trying to avoid being hit by Naofumi's new counterattack again.
But the Shield Hero was patient. He just had to wait for the right opening to get hit by a lot of that page swarm somehow…
...
"Hoshi, what are you doing?" Daitan asked.
The three Otherworlders had finished treating Itsuki's injuries. The Bow Hero's face was still covered in pain and trauma, but his physical wounds had been healed.
Daitan and Akane had been wondering what to do then when the Monochrome Hero began to walk towards the battle with purpose in his stride.
He paused to look back at his two friends. "I'm going to help our new friends to win this battle."
"Uh… Hoshi, no offense, but are you out of your mind?! Did you forget what happened earlier?! Our strongest attacks did nothing!" Akane glared at him in disbelief. "Let's face it, we'll just get in the way."
"Yeah, if I couldn't hurt him, then you two definitely wouldn't be able to do jack squat either." Daitan chuckled self-depreciatively.
Akane briefly glared at him too, but her eyes fell all the same. It was true that Daitan was still the strongest of the three of them. She couldn't deny it.
Hoshi, surprisingly, only shook his head with a smile in response. "You know, you're right. Our attacks aren't anywhere close to being strong enough to even scratch that guy. Especially in the form that he's in right now."
"Then how do you think we'll be able to help out then?" Daitan cocked his head to the side.
"The same way Kizuna always fights when she is up against people," Hoshi answered with a confident smile. "By being a nuisance instead of an actual threat!"
…
Akane and Daitan stared blankly at the mangaka hero, and he had to struggle to not roll his eyes before continuing. "She can't harm people directly, but she is still capable of doing other things to contribute. Like making holes in the ground to trip up people. Or hitting them with that special lure of hers. She doesn't just use her skills to fight head-on. And we shouldn't either."
"I think that instead of trying to fight like these juggernauts over there, we should try to fight the way Kizuna does. By staying out of the fight as much as possible, while making things as easy for our new friends as we can."
…
As the two thought over his words, Akane's eyes suddenly lit up. "I might have a few utility skills that could help out."
"I don't know, none of my skills really have any utility functions to them," Daitan said unsurely. And the weapon forms he did have that could be useful in such scenarios were either too weak to be useful, or required a higher level than what Daitan had to equip them.
Before he could think any further on his uselessness though, Hoshi rested a hand on the shorter Hero's shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll think of something only you can do. After all, there's no way that you'll let me and Akane show you up like this, right?"
...
Daitan was too stunned to answer. And Hoshi trembled only briefly in nervousness before resolve filled him again. "Alright, let's go."
The Ofuda hero rushed ahead into the battle and Akane followed right behind him.
Daitan stayed rooted in his spot next to the unconscious Bow Hero.
'Something only I can do…?'
As the Hero pondered on this, Filo began to move into the Final verse of the song. Azura's soul was starting to glow, signaling how she was almost out of time. But she played with all the fervor worthy of a Hero who fell in love with music.
Sing, with me, one last time
For light's sacrifice
Endless dawn, came but not, without a price
Lost, in the waves, there glimmers
A pale blue stone
I think of you, all alone
Naofumi blocked another attack from the Book Demon's fist.
"Rawrrrrrrr!" Kyo howled in the Shield Hero's face, even as more Cursed Fire washed over his form.
Naofumi stumbled back. "One Hundred Shields!"
Instead of using them like a barrier, he surrounded the Book Demon with the many small shields. Trapping him in place.
As Raphtalia and the others rushed in to attack though, a blast of cursed fire washed over all the Shields, shattering them instantly. They barely retreated in time to avoid the cursed fire.
"Tch." Naofumi clicked his tongue in annoyance. Kyo had hurt himself with that attack, but he avoided being cornered again. This was starting to get troublesome.
While Naofumi considered what strategy to employ next, a voice sounded behind him, pulling the Shield Hero out of his thoughts.
"Shining Stone: Falling Rain." Turning his head around, he found Akane holding a blue sapphire accessory in her hand.
He was about to ask her what she was doing, but then, thick rain clouds began to appear in the sky overhead. And with their appearance, large drops of rain started to fall onto the ash-covered battlefield.
"Grr?" Kyo cocked his head in confusion. That had been a skill the girl just used. And it wasn't an attack skill either.
Why the hell had she used it then? It was pointless!
"Wait…" Naofumi had been confused as to why she used it too. But then, it clicked when he looked around at the remaining flying pages.
They may have looked cursed and demonic. But they were still made of paper. Akane wasn't using a skill to attack. Rather, she was changing the environment to make paper attacks less effective!
Already, the pages meant to attack the others were starting to move more sluggishly than before. And those higher up, the ones that were the closest to the storm clouds, were becoming soaked with water, making them fall apart.
"Now, Shining Jewel!" Akane summoned a gemstone into her hands.
This was another utility skill of hers, the one she'd used that night to try and light her way when the Cursed Bow Hero separated her from her friends. All it did was produce a gemstone that glowed. She also had the option to throw it, turning it into a ball of light which she could adjust the brightness of.
She'd never thought about using it in battle before. But she'd never thought to test to see just how bright she could make one of these things.
And because the skill was tied to gem magic, it wouldn't bother her allies in the slightest if she suddenly summoned a miniature sun into the center of the battlefield.
"Ha!" She set its brightness to the max, before throwing it at Kyo's face. The jewel exploded into a ball of light.
"Grrraaargh!" Kyo merely howled in annoyance as he swatted the bright object out of existence before it could even touch him. But the moment he did, another one came flying right behind it. Blinding the dragon with its light.
That was the other perk of this skill of Akane's. As long as she had the soul power, she could make as many of these as she wanted. It was a skill that had no cooldown on it whatsoever.
"Hahaha! Take this! And this! And some more!" Akane kept throwing one miniature sun after another in Kyo's direction. Some directly at him, others in the air around him. The light mixed with the droplets of rain falling from the sky, creating a series of rainbow afterimages all around Kyo.
The Book Dragon howled as he kept on swatting through one annoying ball of light after the other. The rest of the group looked confused at first, as the light did not bother their eyes in the slightest. But then, they finally realized the openings Akane was creating for them, and they rushed in to take full advantage of the situation.
"GAH!" Kyo howled as Raphtalia slashed through his thigh again, and then again when Rishia and Aksel came in from behind and nearly cut through his tail with their strikes.
"Whoa, this is so freaking cool! It's almost like a fireworks show!" Maya cheered happily as she ran through the series of lights. Ducking under Kyo's now easier-to-predict strikes and embedding her kunai into the back of one of the dragon's knees.
The girl then backflipped out of the way, leaving her weapons buried in the demon's flesh. When Kyo tried moving that leg again, the sharp weapons cut through the tendon. Kyo howled as the damage regenerated over the weapons, leaving them firmly embedded where his tendon was.
Causing the limb to be left in a state of constant agony.
Raphtalia and Aksel launched more skill attacks at the Book Dragon. Hitting his face and chest. Kyo responded with more pages, but Naofumi moved in the way to absorb the attack again.
Several more pages got absorbed before the Book Dragon rushed forward to attack Naofumi again. But with him being blinded by yet another one of Akane's light gems, Kyo's fist and wings impacted uselessly against the ground in front of Naofumi instead. Unfortunately, this inadvertently destroyed the final pages Naofumi needed to absorb to activate his powerful counter-skill.
Naofumi would have been more annoyed, but they weren't ready to defeat Kyo yet, and Akane's light gems continued to throw Kyo off. He tried launching a breath of dragon fire at her, but Naofumi made sure she was well protected with Bunker Shield. Which wasn't all too necessary in the end with how much she was blinding Kyo and making his aiming ability nonexistent.
Hoshi was not sitting idly by either, as Naofumi finally noticed the page swarm thinning even more behind the Book Demon's back.
It appeared that Hoshi had figured out where the swarm would mainly 'settle' when Kyo wasn't using them to attack. They weren't moving around a lot, and the Ofuda Hero attached one ofuda after another to the floating pages.
Some had different effects. One ofuda folded a page into an origami creature that then popped into a burst of confetti. Another one covered a page entirely in water. One ofuda tried to burn a page, but that ended up doing nothing. Still, the Ofuda Hero was moving around the edge of the swarm, using various ofuda to deal with the pages that Kyo wasn't using for battle. And the amount of them being put out of commission was going up the longer Kyo remained unfocused on them, leaving the others with fewer pages to deal with when Kyo tried to throw his pages around again.
"Hah!" Dou-Lon leaped onto Kyo's back, his blade slicing partly through one of the large leathery wings. The hakuko then deftly jumped off, not only avoiding Kyo's page swarm but slashing into one of his other wings in the process.
"HAGHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Things were almost right now. Everyone had adjusted to the flow of this battle and was in position, ready to deal the blows necessary. The rest of the page swarm was almost gone, and Naofumi just had to get lucky enough to absorb one more ranged attack. Then he could give everyone what they needed to weaken Kyo for his skill. And…
"Yo, Akane! Stop throwing those light gems around! I had the perfect idea to throw that jerk off his game and he needs to see for it!" Daitan's voice boomed behind him.
"What are you- WHAT THE- WHAT?!" Akane suddenly shrieked while pausing in her light ball spam. Not that it mattered, as she'd been on the verge of running out of soul power.
The shock in the Jewel Heroine's voice though caused Naofumi to turn his head, confused about what the fuss was about.
Naofumi understood Akane's reaction then. And he wished he'd never looked.
"What the…" Raphtalia and the others turned to look, confused as well. Only for their eyes to widen in horror.
"Ahahaha! Yeah, the man of the hour himself has finally arrived! Huah!" Daitan strode confidently past Akane into the battle proper. His tanned skin glistened all over from the heat of the battle mixing with the falling rain as he flexed his nonexistent muscles.
Yes, the scrawny manlet's skin was glistening all over. As in, he was butt naked. The armor he'd been wearing before was currently stored safely away in his mace, which the Blunt Instruments Hero was casually carrying on his right shoulder.
The only thing preventing anyone there from seeing his 'thing' was a black censor bar that was slapped across his hip area on their HUDs. It seemed the Hero's weapons were all protecting their wielders and their friends from the sight of a scrawny-looking kid basking in the nude.
It would have been funny if not for the situation they were currently in.
The Book Demon scowled as the last of the light gems faded away, revealing his surroundings in full again… but even his serpentine eyes widened as Daitan stopped in front of him in all of his naked glory.
"Yo, nerd! Go ahead and get a good look! This is what a true man is supposed to look like!" Daitan flexed his poorly muscled arms again in front of the demon. "That stupid draconic transformation of yours could never even hope to compare to my awesomeness!"
Kyo stumbled back, a look of shock painted on his draconic face. He might have murdered lots of people and done lots of horrible things; hell, to compare his actions to the likes of the most evil men in both Naofumi and Kizuna's world wouldn't have been far off… but even a Demon Lord would not know how to respond in this situation.
Add in the fact that Kyo had almost no social skills whatsoever and the distraction turned out to be disgustingly effective.
"W-What- WHY ARE YOU BUCK NAKED?! ARE YOU CRAZY!?" Kyo yelled, momentarily snapping out of his feral state.
"No, I'm not crazy, I'm Daitan! Geez and I thought you were supposed to be smart!" Daitan cackled like an imp.
…
Kyo's fist wordlessly came down to pulverize the Blunt Hero.
Naofumi, naturally, moved to block the attack with his Cursed Shield. Even if who he was protecting could give Motoyasu's idiocy a run for its money.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Kyo howled as more cursed fire washed over his entire arm.
"Whoa! Look at that! Fried lizard! Is it weird that a dragon is being hurt by fire? That's so lame! Must be a sign of how weak this guy is, am I right?" Daitan appeared to the side of Kyo, still brandishing his nudity like a weapon.
"YOU SHUT UP THIS INSTANT!" Kyo's other fist tried to swat the uncomfortably close naked young man away, only for his claws to smash into one of Naofumi's skill shields.
"Missed me, nerd! Maybe you should put your glasses back on!" Daitan taunted from beside Naofumi again.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"
What followed was the weirdest thirty seconds of battle Naofumi had ever participated in.
The others were still shocked by Daitan's 'bold' approach to the situation. But Naofumi was eventually able to realize the benefit of it.
"Where's my lunch money, nerd? Did you leave it at home because you were so scared of me?"
"Lunch money?! WHAT THE &^%$ ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"
What Daitan had done was take over Naofumi's job of being the biggest prick on the battlefield. This meant that Kyo was focusing all of his attacks on the Blunt Weapons Hero, making it super easy for Naofumi to predict where the demon would strike and made it laughably easy for him to counter. And, once everyone else overcame their shock, they would be able to easily move into position for their final attacks.
Cursed fire washed over Kyo's arms and tail over and over again. Slowly beating the regeneration factor and burning the draconic flesh away while Kyo's anger grew and grew, making him more and more irrational. Soon, he'd have no choice but to use his pages to deal with the young man.
"You should have trained more with Dee before facing us!" Daitan yelled.
"WHO THE *&^% IS DEE?!" Kyo yelled.
"DEEZ NUTS! HA, GOTEM!"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Kyo's tail was burned away entirely as Naofumi blocked the blow from that particular outburst with his Cursed Shield.
Most of the dragon's limbs had been reduced to stumps now, even with how quickly his regeneration factor was making them regrow. It was unbelievably cringe, but somehow the Blunt Hero was doing it.
He just had to piss Kyo off enough to get him use the rest of that page swarm of his, and then-
"Alright, I'm done going easy on you!" Daitan suddenly posed dramatically and pointed his finger at the demon. "Time to unleash my secret technique learned from hours of watching anime that definitely wasn't focused on magical girls!"
Kyo was beyond furious, and would not have listened to Daitan in the slightest if not for what the idiot did next.
With a flash of light, one of Hoshi's pens popped out of the Blunt Weapon's gem. Daitan deftly caught it in his hand and twirled it around for a moment before using it to swiftly draw something on his body's nether regions.
The maniac then tossed the pen over his shoulder, firmly planted his hands on his hips, and began to gyrate them around.
"Elephant! Elephant! Why is your trunk so long! Look at it spin around! Now let us hear it make a sound! Prööt! Prööt! Prööt!"
…
...
Even Filo briefly stopped singing to point her finger at Daitan and laugh cheerily. "Ahahaha! That's so funny!"
...
…
Unfortunately, no one else found this amusing. The rest of the people who were present just felt confused and disgusted at what Daitan had just done.
As for those among them who came from Japan in particular... They all simply died on the inside.
This included Kyo.
Most of them recognized the reference, even with the censor bars on their HUDs blotting out the worst of it. But it was one thing to watch the poorly drawn caricature of the infamous Shin-chan perform his signature elephant dance.
Seeing it performed in real life by a sweaty scrawny nerd, however, was...
That...
Whatever that was… Naofumi didn't even need to raise his shield.
He just wordlessly pushed the naked young man out of the way as the full wrath of Kyo's fire-covered page swarm moved down on his position to obliterate the crime against humanity that had just occurred out of existence.
The Shield Hero's counterattack charged up fully in less than a second as the rest of Kyo's page swarm was dealt with.
"Vulcan's Retribution!"
The cursed energy beam engulfed Kyo entirely.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Book Demon howled in agony as the full force of Naofumi's counter washed over him once again.
You are the ocean's gray waves
Destined to seek, life beyond the shore, just out of reach!
Yet the waters ever change
Flowing like time, the path is, yours to climb!
The song that'd paused earlier resumed in earnest.
Right as the counterattack ended, Dou-Lon and Aksel appeared behind Kyo and slashed down with their weapons before the dragon could get his bearings.
Kyo's four ruined and burned wings were simultaneously cut off.
"Instant Blade: Mist!"
"Hengen Musou: God Throw!"
Raphtalia's attack slashed open the left side of Kyo's chest again, and then Rishia's follow-up life force skill pierced the Cursed Tome of Wrath right after. Shattering the float book into countless pieces.
"GAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
"Shield Prison!" Naofumi finally yelled as the others quickly retreated.
The ball of chains and plates appeared around the Book Demon. He was still reeling from all his injuries as well as the sudden loss of one of his Cursed tomes.
Perfect.
"Change Shield (Expand)!" Naofumi yelled next.
The ball expanded outward, becoming a cube shape with no holes in it whatsoever. The inside of it was left in complete darkness.
Now, even if Kyo's wings regrew, he wouldn't be big enough to automatically escape the skill through sheer size alone. With the rest of his page swarm gone too, he couldn't use it to break himself out.
The Book Dragon howled in fury as his ruined claws regenerated and fully connected with the walls of the skill. They didn't so much as scratch them though, and Naofumi began to chant.
"Foolish Mortal!"
Suddenly, the dark space around Kyo was filled with a bright blue light. Momentarily blinding him again as he stumbled back.
"Let that which is good to leave unharmed! While that which is evil is sealed till the time of reckoning! Oh Great Spirit, I ask of thee, cast thy judgment upon this soul! Judge for thyself this threat to our world!"
The box shone brightly as the light within it began to leak out and overpower the oppressive purplish-red hue permeating the battlefield from the lingering purple cursed flames and the bleeding crimson sky.
Within moments everything vanished in a sea of blueish white.
Kyo blinked his mismatched serpentine eyes rapidly. The light around him was no longer blinding and he found himself standing in the middle of some kind of endless white void.
He lowered his claws and finally noticed two figures in front of him. One of them was a floating blueish orb of light. The smaller figure standing next to it, however, was humanoid. It looked vaguely feminine, but its features were impossible to discern, due to its noncorporeal form being made of light, just like the floating orb.
No words were exchanged at first. At least not verbally and not human ones. The gem of the book embedded in Kyo's chest blinked faintly with a weak light of its own, causing Kyo to grunt out in pain and clutch the area around his heart.
The floating blue orb blinked back a few times and after a long moment, the Vassal Book responded to it again with another faint glow.
The feminine figure looked up at the glowing blue orb next to her and nodded after it responded to her silent query by shining a little brighter. The feminine figure then turned to face the monster that was brought into this realm for judgment.
"Kyo Ethnina." Ost began to speak, her voice echoing and overlapping with several others.
"Your crimes are too great and numerous to list. Yet, even now, despite the cruel torment that you've brought upon your friends, there are still those who would speak on your behalf. That and your actions in this world in the years prior that left an unquestionably positive impact on it are the only reasons why we are speaking to you now.
"This is your last chance. Currently, you stand one step before the edge of the abyss. But it is not too late to turn back.
"Surrender, and yield the souls that you stole from our world.
"Do it and you will be spared from the world's judgment."
…
"…Hm…hmhmhm." The dragon chuckled quietly. He looked at the figures in front of him fearlessly and then down at his chest where the vassal book was. "You know, for being a book, it's pretty amazing how you have no spine."
Kyo then looked at the glowing orb again. "And you… Shield Spirit, or whatever the hell you're supposed to be. You're quite the hypocrite, aren't you?"
When there was no response from either figure, Kyo continued to speak. "You know who, or rather, what I am. What my mission is and what will happen if I refuse it.
"Yet here you are, looking so high and mighty. The all-powerful world pillar come to judge me, a lowly mortal for my actions. To give me the illusion of choice. When in truth you are even more pathetic and useless than any one of us.
"Casually kidnapping strangers to mold them into arbitrary roles and having them fight the fights that you yourselves can't do anything to win on your own. And even then, you only do enough to maintain the status quo. Never beyond that. Because you cowards are too afraid to take the fight back to your enemy.
"So, when someone like me, someone who actually tries to figure out a permanent solution shows up, you break your own established rules and abandon the world that you're supposed to protect, just to spank me and show me my place; all under the excuse of retrieving a spit in a bucket's worth of souls that'll shield your worthless world from the waves for only a few months!
"You disgust me." The dragon spat on the ground in front of him. "All of you are useless and pretentious hunks of junk masquerading as gods, just like your adversaries!"
"I stand at the edge of the abyss!? You're damn right I am! Because I was born in it and spent every waking moment of my life trying to climb out of it! And the mercy that you're offering me is to kick me back down into it when I am finally so close to climbing out!
"And to reach this far, I had to give up everything! I walked away from my friends! I hunted my own kind! I traveled through countless worlds, seeking the one that would enable me to fulfill my plans! And during that, I saw whole worlds getting devoured by the waves! Little by little, until nothing remained!
"No people! No Hope! No future! Just an empty lifeless void empty of color, light, and even darkness! With the people who'd once inhabited those worlds fading away into obscurity; lost and forgotten!
"I've seen cruelty so deep and depraved that it would render those of lesser wills into raving lunatics!
"I've seen nations, cultures, entire civilizations turn on each other and burn!
"I've sought out knowledge that you would never comprehend!
"I've learned secrets that must never be revealed!
"I've discovered things that would render you mad and I even gave my humanity up!
"All to make 'THEM' burn instead!
"YOU WANT TO JUDGE ME!? THEN DO IT, YOU WORTHLESS HYPOCRITES! TRY AND STOP ME! BUT I WON'T! I WILL NOT STOP, NO MATTER WHAT! NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO! NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY! I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE FOR ANYTHING THAT I'VE DONE! I WILL SEE THIS THROUGH TO THE END! EVEN IF THERE IS A FRACTION OF A FRACTION OF A FRACTION OF A CHANCE THAT MY PLAN WILL WORK, I WILL PURSUE IT FOR AS LONG AS I CAN DRAW MY BREATH AND BEYOND! I WILL NOT BEND MY KNEE TO YOU NOR TO ANYONE ELSE! BECAUSE ALL I WANT IS TO MAKE 'THEM' LOSE AT THEIR OWN LITTLE GAME!"
…
"Not even for her?" The Shield Spirit finally spoke audibly for the Book Hero. The voice was surprisingly young and sounded feminine.
…
Kyo blinked once in surprise at the Spirit's voice, and suddenly the endless white void around him was gone.
He now stood on the sandy shore of his and Yomogi's private beach resort on the southern edge of Luvar. The sun was shining brightly in the clear blue sky while the sea waves gently lapped at the sand.
The Book Hero looked down at his hands. He was a human again, with no trace of his demonic transformation left. The Vassal Book was firmly attached to his waist.
"Kyo, there you are!"
The Book Hero shuddered as he heard someone call his name. He gritted his teeth and slowly looked in the direction where the voice had come from.
Kizuna waved happily at him. She wasn't alone either. A section of the beach had been fenced off near the summer resort for a large barbecue party. Various Vassal Heroes were mingling among each other as well as a handful of other people.
L'Arc and Therese sat at one of the tables, talking to each other excitedly while enjoying a bottle of wine from the vineyard that the Book Hero owned in Lapis.
Ethnobalt stood at the grill with a smile, cooking the various fish that Kizuna had recently caught from the ocean.
Glass and Chris were building an elaborate sand castle together. It had towers and mini sand catapults on the walls and everything.
There were others too. And everyone seemed to be having a blast.
"What took you so long!?" Kizuna ran up to Kyo with a grin and stopped just short of him. "I thought you wouldn't show up again!"
"…" The Book Hero didn't respond.
"Which would be super silly, since we're having the party at your place and all, but I wouldn't put it past you since you're always so busy with throwing yourself at your research and everything!" The Hunting Tool Hero laughed happily and lightly punched Kyo's shoulder.
The others began to notice the Book Hero's arrival and acknowledged it either by waving or raising their cups at him. Yomogi finally spotted him too and ran up as well.
"Kyo! Finally!" The teal-haired girl seemed a bit out of breath and clasped her hands together. "Sorry, but can you show me how to operate the ice cream machine again? I want it to dispense the brown kind but only the white one is coming out. I swear, I won't forget it this time!"
…
"No," Kyo responded curtly and turned away.
"H-huh? Why not-" Yomogi sounded confused.
"Enough… Stop this farce." Kyo covered his face with a trembling hand and stopped listening.
"Kyo? Is everything ok?" Kizuna asked him curiously while setting a hand on his shoulder.
It felt so real…
"Stop this… please…"
…
…
…
For a while, all he could hear was the sound of the waves while he tried to catch his hitching breath. Even after he accomplished that, he did not dare to open his eyes.
It was too painful to make him acknowledge it.
Eventually, the feeling of the small girl's hand on his shoulder vanished. And the sounds of that beach vanished with it.
…
"You are remarkably vindictive, aren't you?" Kyo spoke out after another moment. "Showing me something like this.
"As if that's ever going to happen. After all I've said… after all I've done."
…
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself back in his draconic form. Ost and the Shield Spirit were in front of him again.
The Shield Spirit's light had dimmed, revealing a figure hidden within it. The young woman's pretty face was radiating sadness.
"Just do what you were brought out for. My answer is no."
"... so not even she can convince you to change your mind?" Shield-Chan asked.
The blue light around her dimmed further, revealing her true form. The Shield Spirit, Shield-Chan, was a head shorter than Ost, having bright green eyes that matched her flowing pure green hair. She didn't look older than fifteen, and her white and green dress did not seem to match her supposedly divine nature.
The fact that she had a human appearance at all though was somewhat surprising. Not even [Search Engine] had known something like this about the Weapon Spirits.
"..." Kyo turned away from the light and hung his head. "Even if she could… you know what I am.
"You know why I can't."
"It would just be painful to keep pretending like this…
"Just end my suffering… please."
…
"Very well." The kind, warm voice of the Shield Spirit spoke for the last time.
"Kyo Ethnina…" Ost shook her head.
Everything became engulfed in a blueish white light once more.
"You evil soul! Thy judgment has been cast!
"The Spirit of the Shield has been thy judge! Be sealed, until the time of reckoning! When you are released to satisfy the demands of Justice!"
Naofumi selected 1 on the timer that appeared on his HUD again.
Inside the skill, the Book Demon fell to his knees.
He didn't try to fight back anymore. There was nothing he could do to escape this situation now anyway.
His thoughts had also become oddly clear, and the guilt clawing at his chest was all the more pronounced.
He merely closed his eyes, accepting the inevitable…
"May your evil be sealed! May you find no rest inside True Pandora's Box !"
The outer layer of the prison glowed a bright blue.
You, are the ocean's, gray waves!
Everyone there was forced to look away as the glow intensified, becoming brighter and brighter, until…
…
…
The glow faded away entirely.
The Book Dragon was left encased in a statue of cold, hard stone.
Naofumi slowly lowered his Shield. The Cursed Shield hovering beside him disappeared, the timer in his vision fading away with 5 minutes left on it as his blessed shield and blessed and cursed armor faded as well. Leaving his shoulders sagging.
The Shield Hero was back to looking like his normal, exhausted self within seconds. Gods, he could use a vacation after all that.
"Naofumi! Are you ok?" Raphtalia asked worriedly as she walked up. Sheathing her katana as she did so.
"... yeah, I'm good. Don't worry, just tired." The Shield Hero tiredly responded.
Seeing the debuff on his screen, he found that his stats were only 25% lower instead of 50%. On top of that, his magic power and soul power bars weren't empty. It just looked like they would only recharge to half-full instead.
Overall, it was a huge improvement on the old skill. So this was what upgrading his Blessed Series from the lower tier to the true tier was like, huh?
Still, was that really it… was the battle actually over?
Naofumi looked at the Book Dragon's statue, almost expecting something to happen.
…
Imagine his surprise, or lack of it, when a soul slowly emerged out of the statue.
"What the- isn't he supposed to be trapped now?" Dou-Lon asked worriedly while brandishing his weapon once again.
"That's how that skill is supposed to work, yes," Naofumi replied tiredly.
Great, and here he thought they'd been successful.
Rishia and the others readied their weapons too. The Heroes charged up skills to attack Kyo's incorporeal form.
They would not be caught off guard like they had several times before.
…
"..." The soul did nothing though.
It wasn't moving away from the statue. Its right foot seemed stuck to it.
The more Naofumi looked at it... was it actually Kyo?
The man's eyes were a blue color… yet his body and face looked entirely different. He wore modern clothing. A pair of dirty black slacks with visible mud stains on the knees and a shirt that looked like it'd been repeatedly patched up across the years. A crumpled green tie was haphazardly dangling from his neck.
He looked gaunt, exhausted, almost like a zombie. He looked older than Kyo too. On top of that, his right arm was missing. To add to the mystery, a pair of broken glasses rested on the tip of his nose.
…
…
Naofumi's confusion grew, but then, a question popped to his lips. "You can't separate from the statue, can you, Kyo?"
...
"..." Kyo, because that was who it was, shook his head. A familiar smug smile rested on the broken man's unfamiliar face, giving better evidence of who he was than anything else. "Indeed… I can't. My soul can leave my body… but part of it is still tied to the Vassal Book, and it seems like it has no desire to let me go now, despite trying so hard to run away from me before."
The soul snapped his fingers once, and from the ground behind him where his throne had been, the adamantium blast door parted, allowing a casket to rise out of the ground. The casket glowed with the energy of the Spirit Tortoise.
"Had things gone differently and you had slain me, I would have separated my soul from this body and entered that new one since it was finished moments ago… alas, that will not come to pass now."
"Looks like I won't be able to enter my ultimate body and destroy this world after all… hmhmhm… congratulations on defeating me, Heroes."
…
Naofumi and the others sighed in relief.
It was over.
They had won.
Author's Notes:
I… really went ham with chapter length here… whoops. And to think I'm publishing this during my last Finals week for college too.
I think I'm going to look forward to the next Arc. There's no possible way I'll be making chapters this long again for a long time… right? I'm not just cursed to write 50+ Google Doc page-long chapters for the rest of time, right… right…
RIGHT?!
Hero Clips!
End My Suffering
That...
Whatever that was… Naofumi didn't even need to raise his shield.
He just wordlessly moved out of the way as the full wrath of Kyo's fire-covered page swarm obliterated the crime against humanity that had just occurred out of existence.
After a moment, not even a trace of Daitan was left. He'd been killed in both body and soul. And his weapon vanished into the air, free of its eccentric wielder at long last.
…
Wait, was that what was supposed to happen? I don't remember that being in the script. Starts flipping through pages.
"No, narrator. I'm done with this ^%$#." Naofumi said in a dry voice. "Please, just end my suffering already, Kyo. I can't live after that."
"Naofumi, what?!" Raphtalia screeched. "You can't just die-"
"Trust me, life isn't worth living with that scene still engraved in my brain." Naofumi shuddered.
Itsuki stood up in the background. Apparently, he'd been conscious too, but without even saying a word, he changed his weapon to a pistol weapon form and aimed it at the side of his head.
"ITSUKI! NOOOOOOOO!" Rishia barely tackled him in time to prevent the young man from killing himself.
Strange how his Cursed Series hadn't activated there. Then again, had they seen their Weapon Spirits, even they were trying to find ways to erase themselves because they knew enough about Japanese anime thanks to the many wielders they'd summoned to know just how awful that scene had been.
"Come on, won't you just kill me already, Kyo?!" Naofumi loudly asked the large dragon.
"... To be perfectly honest." Kyo finally spoke. "I want to die too."
…
The Hero's friends all stared at the antagonist in shock. But Kyo had no look of shame on his monstrous visage. Just a clear desire to bleach his brain of what'd happened just a minute ago.
"Please, somebody, just erase my soul from existence. That'll be better than having to live with that being engraved into my mind for the rest of my life."
The others continued trying to talk down the Cardinal Heroes and the antagonist, which came to include Akane and Hoshi as well as they were also unfortunate enough to be cursed with knowledge about the infamous Shin-Chan from their worlds. While some things were so great as to extend into all worlds… some things were, unfortunately, so bad that their influence infected all worlds too. And Shin-Chan happened to be one of them.
The scene transitioned up to the clouds again. Two figures could clearly be seen on it. One of them was still standing, staring down at what had occurred. The other…
"Why did I make him naked why did I make him naked why did I make him naked why did I make him naked-"
Yep, this time, Allen was actually there. And unfortunately for him, he was still suffering psychological damage from what'd occurred. His hands gripped at his hair, and his face was full of trauma.
But the shadowy figure standing next to him had no witty remarks to share this time in response to Allen's distraught state.
"Norin please type out the rest of that scene, I cannot continue writing this crap for the love of God please save me from this insanity before I throw my laptop out the window and- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Author subsequently decided that life was not worth living anymore and threw himself off his cloud in the sky to hug the ground far below.
The resulting breeze of wind caused the cardboard cutout of the proofreader to fall over with a now familiar 'fwap' sound next to where the author had been standing.
"Rafu! Owo, what's this!?" Raph-Chan ran into the frame to look at the sticky note attached to the back of the cardboard cutout.
[On vacation. Refer all hate mail and/or pipe bombs to (atsign)allenblaster: t. Norin]
"Hmmm, I could always use a few new people in my cult…" Rifana pondered to herself, before smiling happily at the readers.
"See you all in two weeks! Rafu!"
Till Next Time
Allen